The Eyes of Gaea

Commander / EDH Devotion Dinosaurs Elves Mono-Green Stompy Theme/Gimmick

Andramalech

Creature (31)

• 1x Allosaurus Shepherd
• 1x Ancient Imperiosaur
• 1x Arboreal Grazer
• 1x Bayou Groff
• 1x Beanstalk Wurm
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Craterhoof Behemoth
• 1x Elder Gargaroth
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Ghalta, Primal Hunger
• 1x Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant
• 1x Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma
• 1x Haywire Mite
• 1x Hulking Raptor
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Lovestruck Beast
• 1x Lumbering Megasloth
• 1x Myr Superion
• 1x Nylea, Keen-Eyed
• 1x Pugnacious Hammerskull
• 1x Questing Beast
• 1x Rhonas the Indomitable
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Scout
• 1x Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
• 1x Silverback Elder
• 1x Soul of the Harvest
• 1x Steel Leaf Champion
• 1x Terastodon
• 1x Wayward Swordtooth

Land (33)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1x Dark Depths
• 17x Forest
• 1x Gaea's Cradle
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Urza's Saga
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wirewood Lodge
• 1x Wooded Foothills
• 1x Yavimaya Hollow
• 1x Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Contest of Claws
• 1x Finale of Devastation
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Life's Legacy
• 1x Natural Order
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Rampant Growth
• 1x Sylvan Tutor
• 1x Three Visits

Artifact (6)

• 1x Emerald Medallion
• 1x Jeweled Lotus
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x The Great Henge
• 1x The Skullspore Nexus

Commander (1)

Instant (13)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Berserk
• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Crop Rotation
• 1x Force of Vigor
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Legolas's Quick Reflexes
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Ram Through
• 1x Royal Treatment
• 1x Tamiyo's Safekeeping
• 1x Veil of Summer
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Enchantment (6)

• 1x Elemental Bond
• 1x Garruk's Uprising
• 1x Kenrith's Transformation
• 1x Lignify
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Tribute to the World Tree

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Maybeboard

Creature (18)

• 1x Argothian Wurm
• 1x Carnage Tyrant
• 1x Challenger Troll
• 1x Engulfing Slagwurm
• 1x Giant Ankheg
• 1x Nemesis of Mortals
• 1x Nullhide Ferox
• 1x Ojer Kaslem, Deepest Growth  ^Flip
• 1x Phyrexian Soulgorger
• 1x Purple Worm
• 1x Ravaging Riftwurm
• 1x Rhox
• 1x Runadi, Behemoth Caller
• 1x Sheltering Ancient
• 1x Siege Wurm
• 1x Sproutback Trudge
• 1x Stormkeld Vanguard
• 1x Woodland Bellower

Instant (2)

• 1x Bite Down
• 1x Fog of War

Artifact (1)

• 1x Maze Skullbomb

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This deck is a Mono-Green ({G}) colored construct built around Gwenna, Eyes of Gaea.

Personally my favorite of my high-powered builds for my chronicle challenge thus far, I'm aiming for this deck to be a solid {8}/{10} on the power scale.

Theme

Number 5 : Mono-Green

This is the fifth in a series of 32 decks total, a chronicle to have a deck for each color identity throughout Magic. This is also the last mono-colored shard in the series, for the color Green.

Green is a stompy color, one defined by ramping, natural resources, and indestructible/hexproof like concepts. It is my favorite of the mono-colored shards and is home to some of my most favorite creature archetypes, including Bears, Dinosaurs, Dragons, Elk, Snakes, Otters, and Elves.

The intention of this deck is not to focus down on any one concept too harshly, but rather to follow the parameters pretty simply; we should cast creatures with power {5} or greater, and do our best to combo cast our creatures and amass a big board state.

Green excels in ramping as part of a golden strategy, while retaining access to plentiful options in removal, utility, draw power, etc.

Construction

Ramp

Ramp is a term used by the community to describe gaining access to more than 1 additional land unit than normal per turn. I'm pretty sure that might have come from the card Rampant Growth but that's just baseless speculation on my part.

• Cultivate is a fan-favorite because we love to ramp for instant fetching purposes. Several other cards on this list do essentially the exact same thing but it's the redundancy within the colors that makes it so useful.

• Rampant Growth is potentially the titular reason for the tab, and does the do.

• Sakura-Tribe Elder is lovingly referred to as "STEVE" because we all love him. Steve does his thing.

• Sakura-Tribe Scout is like someone being babysit by Steve when what you really want is the Arboreal Grazer mom said we have at home. This ability is repeatable which is kind of cool, but most of the time on my turn one I would rather just cast the grazer.

• Arboreal Grazer is a hero in that you drop a body that can block flyers, while also putting down another land for the turn.

• Nature's Lore is another ramp fetching source, which is awesome.

• Three Visits is kinda cool because we specifically go fetch a forest, so if you have one in particular in mind for whatever reason you could.

Draw

Draw power and Draw Advantage is so stupidly important in a high-powered setting because you always need new resources and new information. Green is historically weak when you single it out for draw abilities. Nonetheless, we do retain some ability to draw cards and defend ourselves with things.

• Sylvan Library is the most noteworthy card in green when it comes to draw. I said it. I dare anyone to try and argue that fact. Let down the walls of your format and let each card stand to itself for draw, and I put my money on Sylvan Library as the best card in the color for draw.

• Tribute to the World Tree was chosen over Up the Beanstalk for a few reasons; for the first, Tribute will make our dorks like Elvish Mystic and Llanowar Elves scale up as they enter in late game scenarios, being effectively way less useless. The overall goal in this instance is to make sure our dorks don't become fodder in later turn drops. The second part is that pretty much each card on our creature list that isn't serving to ramp is going to trigger us to draw another card.

• Elemental Bond hits most of our creature list in terms of activating another draw to trigger. A great card with easy utility to it's function.

• Garruk's Uprising is similar to the card detailed above in that you'll pretty much always be hitting another draw anytime another creature enters the field, and now they will also hold up Trample capabilities.

• Soul of the Harvest is a huge body that reads 'draw another card' and I can have that pop multiple times in a turn, so that's pretty awesome.

Removal

Removal is important in any high-powered environment, and green is no exception when it comes to targeted/spot removal cards. Boardwipes are also prevalent in green, but in terms of the shard's weakness, I'd say it's boardwipe capability. However, I digress and we will stick to popularized, and noteworthy removal pieces.

• Beast Within does a thing and blows up that thing over there. It becomes a booger body that you're going to mow over because most of your list is made of power {5} or stronger things.

• Kenrith's Transformation is being considered a removal piece here and represents one of my favorite table interactions I get to have with my table, which is 'that's an elk'. when I proceed to draw a card after disrespecting their Esper Sentinel, or whatever else I decided to poop on.

• Lignify is also considered removal here just like Kenrith's, and we say 'that's a tree' as we proceed to make another irritating body disappear.

• Nature's Claim blows up the thing, and we have this on a huge body in Silverback Elder. Very useful to have something like this redundantly included throughout the list, because that's what makes removal so important; Access.

• Haywire Mite is so beautiful, and might have been one of my favorite cards that came from The Brothers' War. It's a beautiful low curve creature that provides you with the ability to spot remove some problematic permanents, and gain some life back in the process.

Power Five and Greater

The core functionality and easiest way to be successful with this build is for me to construct it on the grounds of many creatures that have power 5 or greater, so that Gwenna, Eyes of Gaea will untap multiple times in a turn and make herself huge. We can exploit that for more creatures and amass a nasty board state very easily if we arrange our spells strategically.

• Pugnacious Hammerskull is my most recently printed (2024) dinosaur that I think is absolutely adorable, and massive in terms of smacking around the competition. A great way to combo into further amazing creatures.

• Bayou Groff is so low to the ground I think you could use the Adventure from Lovestruck Beast in tandem with your cast to make sure you nail a wonderful chain of casts.

• Lovestruck Beast is a multi-utility cast member who can provide a target for a spell like Natural Order, but also triggers the requisite for Gwenna, Eyes of Gaea. All of that value coming from a {2}{G} casting cost is kind of amazing for our circumstances.

• Hulking Raptor does a great job of providing a huge body that also provides value back, because your follow-up turn can be a doozey. The only issue here for me is the doing nothing immediately, because it can take a minute to get back around the board to me.

• Steel Leaf Champion is such a classic Mono-Green Stompy pick that I don't think I could compile this list and not detail it, even though the casting cost is kind of restrictive.

• Elder Gargaroth is a bigger boy who does multiple things, and rests at an easy casting cost in terms of other candidates that are higher up on the food chain. (no pun intended) We can draw a card, create a body, which does trigger Tribute to the World Tree so you net a draw anyways, or just straight up gain some life. What's not to like?

• Silverback Elder does things very similarly to the creature detailed above, except here we're more capable of removal and/or ramping ourselves. The cost is right on the line of too expensive, so this slot could potentially be a Titan of Industry or Battle Mammoth, and I'm favoring the Mammoth.

• Nylea, Keen-Eyed is perfect for our build in reducing the mana cost of our spells and also hitting the power 5 requisite.

Discussion

This deck was so much fun to build and I'm loving it to death. The dinosaurs sub-theme that I 'accidentally' went with ended up being pretty powerful considering that Ancient Imperiosaur was a last minute addition. I thoroughly enjoy sneaking out Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant at the most inconvienent of times and after the play testing, I was able to consistently hit peak Timmy performance by turn 4 every time. The ramp, the removal, the draw power, everything needed to feel confident in your play is found in this deck and I am seriously considering ordering it.

Date added	8 months
Last updated	5 months
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	18 - 0 Mythic Rares 35 - 0 Rares 15 - 0 Uncommons 15 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.06
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, City's Blessing, Construct 0/0 C, Elephant 3/3 G, Fungus Dinosaur, Human 1/1 W, Marit Lage, On an Adventure, Royal