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MarathON

Commander / EDH Counters Elementals Landfall Ramp RGW (Naya)

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Creature (35)

Land (36)

Artifact (4)

Planeswalker (1)

Sorcery (1)

Commander (1)

Commander: altered Marath, Will of the Wild

Enchantment (12)

Instant (10)

Sideboard

Sorcery (4)

Creature (1)

Maybeboard

Creature (59)

Land (29)

Artifact (5)

Sorcery (12)

Enchantment (11)

Instant (6)

Planeswalker (2)

If you got suggestions please leave a comment and include which cards I should replace, and if you like the deck's flavor and thematics feel free to +1 Upvote

Illustration by Tyler Jacobson. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC


+1/+1 counters:

One of the main synergies I want to focus on is +1/+1 counters. Generating them. Moving them. And doubling them.

We have many ways to double our counters or add counters upon various things happening.

To start off we run a few cards that give this "If one or more +1/+1 counters would be put on a creature you control, that many plus one +1/+1 counters are put on it instead." effect but cards like Conclave Mentor or Hardened Scales are some of the OG's. One of the better ones I think is Ozolith, the Shattered Spire and one of the newer ones is Lae'zel, Vlaakith's Champion and she's Domri Rade's best friend too.

Forgotten Ancient is great because we don't have to do anything we just sit back and get counters for the opponents playing. Forgotten Ancient goes a long way in ensuring you can proliferate your entire army.

The same is true for Ornery Tumblewagg and it also lets use two creatures to double the counters on something which is huge. Especially if you're doubling our commander.

Same with Halana and Alena, Partners she will basically duplicate however many counters you put on her to another one of your creatures every turn which is huge. This can get out of hand quick if they don't have an answer for her.

Tributary Instructor can generate some +1/+1's counters through attacking thanks to Mentor.

Unbound Flourishing + Marath, Will of the Wild *f-etch* is a sick combo in this deck. You would get the result of Marath's ability twice without having to pay the cost twice (which includes removing the counters). When you cast it it doesn't get doubled and come into play with double the counters because it specifically doesn't have in it's cost. We do run some cards that do however; (Walking Ballista, Endless One, Hangarback Walkerfoil)

One of the better combo's with our commander is actually Chorus of the Conclave which allows you to pay as an additional cost to any creature. Marath looks at how much mana was spent to cast it, which includes additional costs. If you cast Marath, Will of the Wild for using Chorus's ability to pay X=3, then Marath will enter with 9 +1/+1 counters. 3 of these will be from the Chorus X=3, and the other 6 will be from the mana spent on Marath during casting it, being 6. Marath has this built into itself considering the commander tax rule. If it's not your first time casting Marath it's getting an additional two counters every time you cast it again and again.

Ramp:

Ramping for higher costing costs and just to have a large supply of mana to get other high cost cards out. We do this in a multitude of ways but also try to maximize the synergy with other mechanics, like Landfall for example.

Search for lands into play tapped. Even a card like Yedora, Grave Gardener which turns our dead into lands.

Load up Gyre Sage or Kami of Whispered Hopes with +1/+1 counters to ramp out of control.

Incubation Druid just wants a +1/+1 then it gives you either , , or

Rishkar, Peema Renegade basically makes everything a mana dork. One of the cooler hidden combos in this deck is with Rishkar and Legolas's Quick Reflexes. This allows you to pile a ton of +1/+1 counters on one creature, doubling it's counters in various ways via cards in this deck is a quick way to do this, then you simply . It deals damage equal to it's immense power to target creature. Basically it's a way to have some removal.

Protecting our creatures with +1/+1 Counters;

If Domri Rade survives for 4 turns and you get the emblem now everything has hexproof for single targetting removal spells.

Alpha Authority is your other dedicated persistent hexproof option but for only one creature. It's nice that it has the built in "1V1 me bro" effect though.

Aegis of the Legion which you want to plop this down on your biggest dudes and start passing out shield counters to everything.

We can Disguise Essence of Antiquity for then turn it face up when we need to give something Hexproof.

Silkguard, Snakeskin Veil, Royal Treatment, Legolas's Quick Reflexes. Ranger's Guile, Blacksmith's Skill, and Heroic Intervention all can be played for one-of protection events should you be lucky enough to draw into them and hold onto them. I was thinking of taking these cards out and just adding more creatures and lands though.

If we can manage to get both a Ruin Ghost and Yedora, Grave Gardener out we can have a form of creature recursion or immortality because whenever a card enters the battlefield, unless stated otherwise, it enters face up. This combo does work the way you think it does where your creature dies and comes back as a forest land, then you flicker it away with the Ruin Ghost's ability to return it as the creature again. You cannot do this on Marath though because if Marath enters the battlefield without being cast, then no mana was spent to cast it. So it would enter with no counter's on the base 0/0 creature body. We of course don't care because it's our commander and we an just recast it with the commander tax + and get it back out there with even more counters.

Tamiyo's Journal is such a commander staple. With 100 card singleton being able to tutor out any card you want or need is so powerful.

We also run Sterling Grovealtered because we have so many powerful Enchantments in this deck.

Repeatable ETB's

Many of our creatures (Rishkar, Peema Renegade. Scrounging Bandar, Basri's Acolyte, Jadelight Spelunker, Jadelight Ranger, Verdurous Gearhulkfoil, Primeval Protector, Bright-Palm, Soul Awakener, or Seven-Tail Mentor.) have strong ETB effects so we want to trigger ETB effects repeatedly. I do this by using flicker effects like Teleportation Circle and Conjurer's Closet. has plenty of other options to include if you really wanna build the deck towards ETB triggers such as Flickerform. Most the cards don't allow you to do the ETB effect over and over again repeatedly without paying another additional cost but Teleportation Circle and Conjurer's Closet do not which make them my favorite. Of course any creature you exile this way with +1/+1 counters on it won't stay but we can move them around in various ways.

Just keep in mind we cannot flicker Marath itself, because if Marath enters the battlefield without being cast, then no mana was spent to cast it. It will therefore enter the battlefield without any +1/+1 counters. If no other effects are increasing its toughness at that time, it will subsequently be put into its owner's graveyard as a state-based action.

Also another flicker option we run is Eternal Witness in order to get stuff back that has been removed. We can do it on repeat with the flickering.

Some other power-house cards in this deck include;

Bristly Bill, Spine Sower one of the newest cards to Magic® is an instant +1/+1 counter synergy staple! And the artwork IMO is the best among the new creaturetype — cactusfolk — cards. As such it's fitting that he slides right in as one of the best cards in this deck. We can trigger that Landfall a lot here. And once you start piling on counters and then doubling them you just run away with the game.

Undergrowth Champion has built in protection in this deck making it almost impossible for the opponents to deal with. It's just a really good card.

Shalai and Hallar is a threat because you can just sit back and watch the deck pop off generating and doubling counters to everything and then dealing damage without even attacking.

Evolution Sage is one of the few ways I tried to incorporate Proliferate into the deck. I probably should try to include more of the staples but this one has synergies with Landfall making it highly repeatable and easy to accomplish for us.

Aragorn, Hornburg Hero gives everything First Strike just not when using them as defenders.

Trollbred Guardian gives everything Trample.

Champion of Lambholt gives everything unblockable basically.

The real stars of the show here are our lands!

With so many cards utilizing Landfall they really are important pieces to our deck's sub-theme.

I had around 40 lands in this at one point but wanted to fit more creatures in so I went with 30 lands which is about one third of the deck. Of course that's not counting that some of the other cards (Creature, Enchantment, etc) turn into lands or that we have some ramper creatures or creatures that turn our creatures into mana producers and/or lands.

I definitely wanted to include all of the lands that can generate +1/+1 counters in the deck for sure.

Opal Palace, Forge of Heroes, Drannith Ruins, Gavony Township, Oran-Rief, the Vastwood, Idyllic Grange, Guildmages' Forum

Bretagard Stronghold is a sac option to do this but we have a few ways of getting card recursion from the graveyard.

Fetch Lands

We use fetch lands to trigger Landfall twice. I might need to include more Basic lands if I notice we run out of searchable options ever.

Cabaretti Courtyard. Evolving Wilds. Etc

Boseiju, Who Endures is just a land that can be used to remove an Artifact or Enchantment we need to deal with in a pinch. Other than that it just looks cool with the bonsai tree.

One of the coolest interactions is with our land Diamond City. While it only comes into play once — normally that is — if we can somehow turn it into a creature (Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestorfoil) then we can flicker it with Conjurer's Closet or Teleportation Circle each turn to generate a new shield counter and then it to transfer the shield counter onto another creature we want to protect. Of course making it a creature opens it up to easier removal but we have Eternal Witness to bring it back and soon we will have access to Lumra, Bellow of the Woods too.

We gotta fix our lands, take out the slow dual lands and add in some better fetch lands for double landfall triggers. Just grabbing the basic lands we run to mana fix.

Wildwood Mentor + Marath, Will of the Wild is a nice little synergy, create the token and still get a +1/+1 counter. Then you can keep stacking more and more counters on this to utilize it's other ability of making something +X/+X larger to attack with it.

We might want to lean on some cards that have the Mentor mechanic. Proliferate. Evolve. Explore.

There are many many more really good green creatures you can choose to run in this deck, just replace one of them with your favorite. If you have a suggestion for one though please leave a comment I'd love to discover it too.

That or maybe white creatures with +1/+1 synergy like Dust Animus are better to be added here Especially more flyers.

We're going to want to add Lumra, Bellow of the Woods + Lotus Fieldfoil especially if we do a variant of this deck that leans more heavily on landfall.

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Revision 8 See all

(1 year ago)

+1 Rampant Growth side
+1 Reap and Sow side
+1 Sylvan Scrying side
+1 Tempt with Discovery side