Evolution Sage

Creature — Elf Druid

Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, proliferate. (Choose any number of permanents and/or players, then give each another counter of each kind already there.)

Discussion (50)

stellarnear on Atraxa Friends Edition

5 days ago

Evolution Sage > Lethal Vapors
The Elderspell > Tainted AEther
Oath of Gideon > Bolas's Citadel
Oath of Nissa > Oath of Jace
Vraska, Relic Seeker > The Chain Veil
Elspeth, Sun's Champion > Damnation
Sorin, Solemn Visitor > Teferi, Master of Time
Maze of Ith > Meekstone
Grim Tutor > Necropotence

RiotRunner789 on BCC Week 2 | Slimefoot the Stowaway

1 week ago

I like it.

Going hard on the spore counter route, you may consider Evolution Sage.

To make room for her, I'd consider cutting Bramble Elemental since he's 5cmc and you don't have many auras. You may want to consider evolving wilds and terramorphic expanse as well for their landfall triggers (you have 1 or 2 other landfall cards in the deck already).

Also, what are your thoughts on Death Mutation? I like and dislike this card. The ceiling is potentially high but it could also be a dead card at 8cmc. I would run Murder or Putrefy over this but still just want to see this card in the wild succeed just once.

But again. Good job on the deck. There are a lot of cards here I never would have considered because I don't think I've seen so many of them. Now I have to take a second look at how well some of these might play out.

slashdotdash on Golos attempt II

2 weeks ago

Hey there Kronhamilton,

First of all, I like the improvements you’ve made to your deck. It’s already looking a lot slicker and I can see you’ve made some very fun looking changes to how the deck plays.

You’ve got a nice array of threats (I always love to see the Bringers and Ur-Dragon) and a decent amount of ramp which are both a big plus. Additionally, you’ve got the beginnings of some nasty graveyard synergy shaping up, which looks really, really cool as a sort of plan B.

That being said, I’d like to make a few suggestions to help guide you toward a more consistent and powerful Golos deck. Please remember that these suggestions are just my informed opinion, and that I totally respect whatever deck choices you decide to make. I really just want to help you get comfortable with deck building and learning what to look for in a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ card.

Broad Suggestions

I would encourage you to add 2 Lands, 3 Removal cards, and 8 Draw cards. I’d also think about adding 2 more Ramp cards, but that is less critical to the overall health of the deck. Your Threats look great and I think your Sweepers are also appropriate. Anything that synergizes with your graveyard backup plan is great.

There are a couple of things to think about as you play this deck; 1. “Am I happy or sad to be holding this card in my hand or drawing it off the top of my deck?” – If a card seems to constantly be ‘the wrong card’ for the situation, or you can never seem to cast it, or you always play other cards instead, or you tend to die while holding a certain card, then you probably want to think about how well that card fits in your deck and whether or not you should cut it or modify the deck to support it. 2. “What ongoing advantage does this card give me?” – Some cards seem like a decent card based on having decent power/toughness, a fair cost, and some neat keywords or abilities. Just having those upsides alone though doesn’t make a card truly powerful. Instead, try to think about what ways a card can synergize with your deck to create crazy effects or otherwise how it will become more dangerous as the game progresses (like a Quartzwood Crasher, Scute Swarm, or Giant Adephage). Additionally, try to find cards that do multiple things such as Chasm Skulker which gets bigger when you draw cards and also explodes into tokens when it dies, or even Ravenous Chupacabra which deals with a threat and also acts as a blocker when you are facing pressure. The key is finding a way to levarage the most amount of value in each individual card – even a 2 mana ramp spell will set you up to play all of your future spells 1 turn earlier than normal for the rest of the game, which can be an insane advantage when you think about it. 3. “Am I out of options?” – If you can’t seem to find a solution to a problem or you’re ‘running out of steam’, then it is likely that you need more card draw and more ways to create ‘engines’ that accrue value. An example of an engine would be Fertilid + Evolution Sage or Rampaging Baloths + Elemental Bond or Kruphix, God of Horizons + Victory Chimes or Atraxa, Praetors' Voice + Ajani, the Greathearted or Anointed Procession + Endless Ranks of the Dead or Search for Azcanta  ^Flip or Deadbridge Chant or Mind Unbound, etc.

Ramp

Your ramp looks pretty good with 10 dedicated Ramp cards. I’d suggest adding 2 more Ramp spells to really help speed things up early. Examples would be Kodama's Reach, Llanowar Elves, Wild Growth, Farseek, Rampant Growth, Springbloom Druid, etc.

Ramp - 10

• Fertilid

• Palladium Myr

• Solemn Simulacrum

• Cultivate

• Arcane Signet

• Commander's Sphere

• Ketria Crystal

• Raugrin Crystal

• Savai Crystal

• Sol Ring

Not Ramp

• Azusa, Lost but Seeking - you don’t have enough land + card draw to really capitalize on Asuza’s ability.

• Empowered Autogenerator – this card is vastly too slow to be considered a true Ramp card. At best I would call it a ‘Ramp Support’ card, because it is there to slowly help you in the late game, not propel you in the early game like a true Ramp card (Rampant Growth, Farseek, Fertile Ground, Llanowar Elves, Wild Growth)

Draw

Overall, I think your card draw package needs a little bit of love. I want to note I see a lot of ‘looting’ effects like the ones on Teferi, Master of Time or Obsessive Stitcher and while these cards are great for a graveyard strategy they still don’t count as card draw. I’d keep most of these ‘looting’ type cards, but try to find cards that get you about 2 or 3 cards such as Harmonize, Concentrate, Escape to the Wilds, Urban Evolution, Moldervine Reclamation, Deathreap Ritual, Recurring Insight, Mind Unbound, Underworld Connections, Cloudblazer, Mulldrifter, Drawn from Dreams, Return of the Wildspeaker, Harvester of Souls, Momentous Fall, Dream Trawler, Keeper of Fables etc.

Draw - 2

• Bringer of the Blue Dawn (nice)

• Reconnaissance Mission

Not Draw

• Barrin, Tolarian Archmage – drawing 1 card does not really count. If anything, Barrin is like slow, bad removal for dealing with your opponents’ stuff temporarily. If you’re interested in reusing Golos’s land finding ability I would recommend playing Soulherder instead.

• Solemn Simulacrum – He has sort of ‘incidental value’ with his death trigger but doesn’t actively net you a bunch of cards like Keruga, the Macrosage or Beast Whisperer. Sad Robot is still great though.

• Titanoth Rex – still keep this guy because he is a threat that isn’t dead in your hand on turn 5.

• Void Beckoner – same story as the Rex

• Teferi, Master of Time – Teferi’s great, but he is really at his best when you’ve got 4-7 card in hand so that you can throw a bunch of big threats to the graveyard and hopefully draw a reanimation spell. Other than that, Teferi isn’t going to refill your hand so he doesn’t count as true draw.

Removal

Your removal package looks like it needs a couple more additions to keep your deck responsive and able to handle imminent-doom type threats. It is worth noting that cards like Blatant Thievery or Mythos of Illuna can save you in certain situations, but be wary of their crazy mana costs and the fact that they are not instant-speed answers. Examples include Mythos of Nethroi, Beast Within, Price of Fame, Reality Shift, Terminate, Return to Nature, Putrefy, Utter End, Eat to Extinction, Murderous Rider, etc.

Removal – 4 (aim for 7)

• Mortify

• Despark

• Barrier Breach

• Disenchant

Cuts

There are several cards that I would consider cutting first when modifying the deck.

• Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast - he relies very heavily on luck and only interacts with creatures. This makes him good with only 30% of your deck. Additionally, Lukka can’t ‘protect’ himself like Garruk can (making tokens to block for him), nor does he have an immediately accessible removal ability like Teferi. Overall, Lukka is interesting but a little lacking in consistency, defensibility, and power.

Azusa, Lost but Seeking – you don’t have enough land + card draw to really capitalize on Asuza’s ability. Yes, you can use the double lands (like Gruul Turf) to bounce a land to hand and then play that land with Asuza, but realistically that’s such a narrow and relatively tame synergy (in this non-landfall deck, that is) that you would be better off playing a Farseek or a Rampant Growth or even a Fertile Ground.

• Sparkhunter Masticore - This little fellow has a major drawback and no seriously crazy abilities that make him worthwhile. Yes he can deal with planeswalkers, but so can a Murderous Rider or an Eat to Extinction. Yes he can be an indestructible 3/4, but you have to pay 3 mana just to make him indestructible. Under normal circumstances that’s 6 mana for a 3/4 that dodges death one time - a 3/4 just isn’t fantastic. The biggest bad news about this robocat is its “additional cost to cast” ability which means that even if you hit it with Golos’s ‘Rainbow Wheel of Death’ ability, you still have to discard a card for a 3/4. I just honestly think you’d rather have a removal spell (Beast Within, Mythos of Nethroi) instead of this cat any day.

• Pursued Whale - While this whale is kinda cool and he does force combat, he is just sorta expensive for what he does. 7 mana for an 8/8 is pretty standard and giving your opponents tokens (that they could just attack you with or sacrifice to an effect) can be a bad idea in some situations, such as when they have an Beastmaster Ascension or a similar effect on the field. While his semi-hexproof ability (3 more mana to target) seems nifty, that is one of the only really powerful highlight abilities of this card, meaning that ability is protecting a relatively low-powered card. A couple immediate alternatives come to mind for me; Geode Rager to force combat AND keep you safe, and Dream Trawler for a flying, hexproof, lifelinking, card drawing threat.

• Renata, Called to the Hunt - She just isn’t fantastic. You aren’t playing a devotion centric deck in which she might become a 10/10, and your strategy doesn’t really care about 1/1 counters either. I would consider replacing her with a Harmonize or another 3 or 4 drop with more impactful abilities. Heck, even another reanimation spell could be nice like Unburial Rites or Grave Upheaval since your deck seems to have some tendency to but things in the graveyard for later.

• Lorescale Coatl - Cards like this (or his bigger cousin Chasm Skulker) are really designed for “wheel decks” that play “wheel effects” like Windfall or Reforge the Soul. He is fine, but really not much better than that. If you want a threat that can grow faster and do more important things, try Managorger Hydra or even Scute Mob.

• Colossification - This aura is too expensive, taps your creature down, and worst of all is an aura. Auras are generally quite bad because your opponent can destroy your creature and the aura attached to them with one spell – and odds are they’ll do that because it is usually too juicy not to. The fact that you can’t attach Colossification and attack immediately means that your opponents will have a full turn to deal with it before you get a chance to use it (and keep in mind your Colossified creature needs to survive 3 opponents’ turns!). This means you’ll most likely run out of cards in a hurry without accomplishing anything.

• Door to Nothingness - Unlike Progenitus, you can’t reanimate the Door, nor can you get its full value off of the Rainbow Wheel of Death. The only time this card does anything at all is when you literally have 10 mana of the exact color combination necessary to use it. It’s still your call, and I know some people make it a goal to Door their opponents, but be warned: you probably don’t have as much ramp as you need to make this work well. I’d consider supporting this crazy cards (and your many expensive threats for that matter) with a few more ramp spells – Boundless Realms, Migration Path, Circuitous Route, Kodama's Reach, Explosive Vegetation, Zendikar Resurgent

• Azor's Gateway  ^Flip – This card belongs in a very specific variant of Golos. That variant is the Minamo, School at Water's Edge Golos deck which also runs stuff like Vizier of Tumbling Sands, Fatestitcher, Kiora's Follower, and other payoffs like Jegantha, the Wellspring, or Captain Sisay. Especially considering that Sanctum of the Sun (the flip side) adds X mana of only 1 color, I think this card is just rarely going to work like you want it to unfortunately.

• Lathliss, Dragon Queen - Basically, you only have 3 other dragons in the deck so I would either exchange a bunch of cards for more dragons or cut Lathliss, since she will rarely be able to use her best ability (5/5 tokens). Keep in mind, you could also run a bunch of cards with the ‘changeling’ keyword if you wanted to get really funky, in which case you may as well also play stuff like Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow, Reaper King, Crested Sunmare, The First Sliver but that’s a very slippery and insane slope that I’m not sure you want to get sucked into.

Summary

Nice changes Kronhamilton, I can see that your deck is really starting to shape up as a rampy graveyard-mingling Golos deck, and that’s really cool. I encourage you to try and pay attention to what situations you find yourself in, as that’s often the best way to tell what cards you need to cut or add to the deck for it to work best. As a default, I’d consider making a few of the changes I mentioned in the Broad Suggestion section, as those changes should just generally help with your deck’s consistency.

Please do let me know how you decide to tune your deck – it’s really fun to watch honestly, and I’m always down to help advise you. Other than that, take care and enjoy Golos!

Best,

-Slashdotdash

multimedia on Omnath elementals mashup

4 weeks ago

Hey, good creation and nice Secret Lair Blightsteel :)

You should consider buying the new Zendikar Rising Commander Land's Wrath precon. In the $20 precon are several cards that can improve your deck:

• Omnath, Locus of Rage: finisher, repeatable Elemental tokens with landfall.
• Zendikar's Roil: repeatable Elemental tokens with landfall.
• Arcane Signet: two drop Rainbow mana rock.
• Mina and Denn, Wildborn: play an additional land on your turn and return a land to give Omnath trample.
• Admonition Angel: repeatable exile opponent permanents with landfall.
• Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor: repeatable +1/+1 counters with landfall.
• Waker of the Wilds: mana sink to turn lands into Elementals.
• Emeria Shepherd: recur or reanimate permanents with landfall.
• Evolution Sage: repeatable proliferate with landfall which is good with +1/+1 counters.
• Harrow: land ramp, puts two lands onto the battlefield to trigger Omnath and landfall.
• Kodama's Reach: land ramp.
• Return of the Wildspeaker: draw.
• Inspiring Call: protection and draw.
• Myriad Landscape
• Naya Panorama

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• Risen Reef + Omnath, Locus of Rage/Zendikar's Roil

This is a casual budget Elemental interaction, Risen triggers whenever any Elemental you control ETB which includes tokens. If you reveal a land with Risen then you put it onto the battlefield and create another Elemental which triggers Risen again. This can be a lot of card advantage with Elementals.

• Forgotten Ancient + Marath, Will of the Wild

Another budget Elemental interaction that uses +1/+1 counters. Ancient is a good card for counters in multiplayer Commander because it triggers whenever any player casts a spell. The mana that Omnath makes can be used to activate Marath and you can keep doing this as long as you can keep putting counters on Marath. Omnath, Locus of the Roil, Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor, Felidar Retreat, Evolution Sage can all be repeatable sources of counters onto Marath with landfall.

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Some budget lands to consider adding to improve the manabase:

• Exotic Orchard
• Jungle Shrine
• Mystic Monastery
• Kessig Wolf Run: it's less than $1, mana sink to give Omnath pump and trample.
• Yavimaya Coast
• Battlefield Forge
• Shivan Reef
• Cinder Glade
• Canopy Vista
• Prairie Stream

The Pain lands: Coast, Forge, Reef you pay 1 life to make colored mana, but that's fine in 40 life Commander and since Omnath is a life gaining engine with landfall. Can get these lands for less than $1 each. The Battle lands: Glade, Vista, Stream would help the manabase since they have good interaction with lots of basic lands and you can get them for less than $2 each.

Good luck with your deck.

PirateCptAstera on Vraska, Horse Queen

1 month ago

possibly one year too late, but a couple of things i noticed in this deck:

1. Is there a specific use for Windswept Heath and Wooded Foothills? You would be better off with Verdant Catacombs, Twilight Mire or Tainted Wood.

2. And if your sole purpose is to get Vraska to Ult, I would consider using Doubling Season since Vraska would come in with double her loyalty counters. That way you could set up the combo of: have Doubling Season and either Evolution Sage or Karn's Bastion in play, bring out Vraska, Golgari Queen, play a land (if making use of the sage) and proliferate Vraska. Ult Vraska straight away giving your opponents less time to respond to her.

Peoni on Catrunner

1 month ago

Here are some cards you might like: Beast Whisperer, Broodhatch Nantuko, Colossal Majesty, Deep Forest Hermit, Druid's Deliverance, Evolution Sage, Explore, Full Flowering, Gaea's Blessing, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Generous Stray, Giant Adephage, Gilt-Leaf Archdruid (pushing the budget, I know. Just thought I'd throw it out there),Hunter's Insight, Paragon of Eternal Wilds, Rampaging Baloths, Runic Armasaur, Sandwurm Convergence, Second Harvest, Selesnya Eulogist, Seton, Krosan Protector, Shapers' Sanctuary, Snake Umbra, Temur Sabertooth, Verdant Rebirth, Voice of Many.

Figured I'd give you a lot of different choices and you can pick through them for the ones you like.

What I would recommend you do with this deck is turn its focus into a cat and druid tribal deck that incorporates a lot of card draw and token generators along with populate effects. I feel it would bring a lot more synergy to your deck without increasing the price.

IF you ever wanted to break budget a little bit for this deck, I'd suggest maintaining the whole cat/druid/token themes and incorporating a little more of an enchantment focus with cards like Argothian Enchantress, Verduran Enchantress, Yavimaya Enchantress, Eidolon of Blossoms, and Setessan Champion. This would both boost your druid count a bit and your card draw significantly. These combined with enchantments like Beastmaster Ascension, Parallel Lives, Season of Growth and auras such as Keen Sense, and Sixth Sense, would net you a lot of value and power.

You might also consider cutting some of your lands like Blighted Woodland, Desert of the Indomitable, Slippery Karst, and maybe 1 or 2 forests, and adding in more ramp cards. I'd suggest maybe a Kodama's Reach and some artifact ramp like a Mind Stone, but I think you should focus most of your ramp on land auras like Wild Growth, Fertile Ground, Wolfwillow Haven, and Overgrowth. They'd be really nice if you ever decided to go down the Enchantress route.

I knooow this is long I'm sorry but I just see a lot of cool fun and potential in this deck of yours. :^) I tried to keep my recommendations budget but a few pricier choices might've slipped through. I hope this helps!

Beebles on Earth Benders of the Multiverse

1 month ago

Cool that you looked at my list for inspiration! I can totally get behind Evolution Sage. I also really like the card. In the end I did no include it as it probably shines more in a proliferate-centered deck than a landfall-centered one. Still, trying out different things never hurts. And having different versions for one deck is a fun way to keep things interesting in your playgroup. So I say: go for it ;).

Mennenth on Earth Benders of the Multiverse

1 month ago

Beebles

Hey, thanks for welcoming me back!

I'm currently looking through your Mina and Denn list again to see what all you have done, to see if I can adapt some ideas to my list.

I find it interesting (in a good way) that you have neglected some cards because of the target they paint on you. I totally get that mentality, and may try to follow suit in some ways. I may still hold on to Nissa though, and maybe even add some other lands matter walkers, cause I'm thinking that the Evolution Sage may enable them to be stupid explosive when played right.

The problem is still as you mentioned though; taking full advantage of that explosion as possible within a turn or two. Its been a while, but from my experience with my build is that my wins were total blow outs and my losses were because I was literally a turn too slow.

Maybe I'll see about changing up my strategy a bit to even that out a bit, but for now I'm still pondering various ways to bolster my win condition with diversity to make it harder to stop even if a target is on my head.