pie chart

Appear Before the Dog Emperor

Commander / EDH BGW (Abzan, Junk) Counters Dog Legendary Matters

Hipsterling

Upvote 0
0

Creature (34)

Enchantment (4)

Land (35)

Sorcery (7)

Planeswalker (3)

Commanders (2)

Commander: foil Reyhan, Last of the Abzan
Commander: foil Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful

Artifact (10)

Instant (5)

Sideboard

Creature (2)

Enchantment (1)

Maybeboard

Creature (16)

Artifact (11)

Planeswalker (2)

Land (2)

Enchantment (1)

They put my dog on a card, so I had to make this deck. This deck is meant to be a highly synergistic casual deck.

Yoshimaru gets counters every time a legendary permanent enters the battlefield under our control. The current list has about 60 legendary permanents in it (including Yoshimaru) meaning that over half of the cards we draw can trigger our good boy. As such, we want to get our good boy out on turn one and let him become the best boy. Reyhan is here for support. If anything happens to Yoshimaru, he’ll hold his counters while he waits for his dog to come home. They make a good team. The goal of this build is to win through Yoshimaru’s commander damage.

The main idea behind having Yoshimaru helm this deck is that he’s a one drop that comes out early and becomes much bigger. Your opponents will have to choose between getting rid of this growing good boy or Vorinclex for a spot removal slot. Who’s more threatening: this cheap pup or Heliod Sun Crowned? The goal is to play a lot of better targets for hate with let’s your dog sit and wait to become the real threat. Hopefully your opponents are honorable like Goku and will wait for your dog to reach his final form. Yoshimaru is the dog emperor of the table.

Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider is extremely important because he doubles all the counters we put down. Plus he’s a legendary monster who is devoted to making Yoshimaru feel good. Corpsejack Menace also doubles counters but it’s not legendary so it has less synergy with our pup.

Legendary Lands also trigger Yoshimaru so I’ve packed in as many as I could get my hands on. Okina, Eiganjo, Yavimaya, Flagstones, Untaidake, Inventors Fair, Pendelhaven: these are some of the lands that grow the pup. The Neon Kamigawa lands are fantastic because their channel cost gets smaller the more legendary creatures we control so they will often cost only one mana.

The Ozolith is a legendary card that also saves our counters for us if anything ever happened to this beautiful boy, Heaven forbid.

Mikaeus, the Lunarch; Oath of Ajani; Ajani, the Greathearted; Gavony Township; Nissa, Voice of Zendikar; Shadrix Silverquill. These legendary cards are here to put counters on all our creatures. They will do a lot of work to make Yoshimaru’s wait tolerable. Vigor, while not legendary, also protects all our other creatures from damage and pumps them up at the same time. And Cathar’s Crusade is a must since this deck is literally about entering the battlefield and +1/+1 counters.

Speaking of Cathar’s Crusade, Acererak the Archlich is a neat piece of tech. He bounces to your hand every time you cast him unless you complete a specific dungeon. So he just serves as a legendary permanents entering the battlefield that we can cast indefinitely. Plus all that venturing into the dungeon gives us incremental advantage while we do it.

With Cathar’s Crusade out we can modify a lot of our creatures which works very well with Kodama of the West Tree. The western kodama gives modified creatures trample, but also it lets modified creatures search up basic lands and ramps us at the same time. Since Yoshimaru is almost always going to be modified, he’ll be ramping and winning the game at the same time. It’s just what we want him to be doing.

It’s not hard to turn Selvala, Heart of the Wilds into a broken enabler of degeneracy, but as long as Yoshimaru is out and getting stronger, Selvala will tap for more and more mana. Jiang Yangu, Wildcrafter and Rishkar, Peema Renegade also allow us to ramp up our mana production. All creatures with +1/+1 counters now tap for mana. While we don’t want Yoshimaru stooping to the level of mana production, he can in a pinch.

It’s easy to run out of gas if we’re playing all our cards as fast as we get them. Reki is here to recharge us with a story and a card for every legendary creature. Kethis also lets us cast legendary creatures from our graveyard if we need to. Kolvori and Heroes Podium also let us dig for legendary cards to regain some card advantage. Captain Sisay also serves to search out any legendary card we need. Legendary lands, legendary sorceries, legendary planeswalkers, legendary artifacts, legendary enchantments, and legendary creatures are all things she can grab. It’s selective card advantage, which this deck needs.

I’m trying to keep everything as legendary as possible. Spot removal, board wipes, and ramp are all very important, but, as a consequence of the legendary undertone of this deck, hard to come by.

Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire is generally bad spot removal, but it’s good here because it’s also a legendary permanent. And it gives you choice as either a land or conditional spot removal. Choice is always good. Boseiju is also flexible as removal at instant speed or a legendary land. Anguished Unmaking is a fantastic piece of spot removal. It’s instant speed, fairly cheap, and hits everything but lands. Force of Vigor is even better since it can be free at instant speed. It’s only capable of hitting artifacts and enchantments but we gotta target those too. The Wanderer is also pseudo removal. It does hit at least one big creature, possibly more, all while being legendary and providing a static buff too. Yawgmoth’s Vile Offering is a reanimation spell and spot removal for creatures or planeswalkers. Good combo, but a little overpriced. Hopeful Initiate also serves as spot removal for artifacts and enchantments but it’s not legendary. Urza’s Ruinous Blast is a one sided board wipe which leaves our board state alone, but it does miss opponents commanders.

Ramp is hard to come by. Most of what I’m calling ramp takes some mental gymnastics to consider it as such. But I still will. These include Jiang Yanggu and Rishkar. They make our creatures with 1/1 counters become mana dorks. Sword of the Animist ramps us but it has a high start up cost. Both Selvala cards can ramp us. Kolvori’s backside is a mana rock. Hamza ramps us by making our creatures cheaper. Kethis ramps us by giving us a cost reduction on legendary spells. Oath of Ajani ramps us by cheapening our planeswalker spells. And for non-legendary ramp, we have sol ring because it’s sol ring.

Suggestions

Updates Add

Comments

Attention! Complete Comment Tutorial! This annoying message will go away once you do!

Become a supporter of TappedOut and hide ads for only $3/month!

Important! Formatting tips — Comment Tutorial — markdown syntax

Please login to comment

93% Casual

Competitive