Maybeboard


-----[Introduction]-----

Hello everyone! This is mtg_mykeg with another EDH deck I threw together for fun. When Zacama, Primal Calamity was spoiled, I thought the card was a decent commander but for my particular play style, the mana cost was just too expensive and the abilities you sink the mana into I felt were not as good. As of late it, I’ve come to a point where I want to play EDH decks that are not has hyper-aggressive or efficient as the cEDH decks, but I want to play powerful cards. Essentially, I have been looking for a commander and a deck that is on the casual/semi-competitive side of things. Interestingly, I got a chance to try this commander out in a multiplayer setting. I borrowed my friend’s son’s Zacama EDH deck that he built with the cards that he had. Though not as optimal as I like, when I played Zacama, I just felt so far ahead in terms of controlling the board. And even if he died, more often than not, he was just coming back on my next turn. It almost felt inevitable. So after that night, I decided to try and build my own iteration of Zacama bearing in mind I was wanting the deck to be less competitive than some of the other decks I’ve built in the past, but while also playing strong and powerful spells. In this article, I wrote up my thoughts and card selections for this deck. If you like the deck, please leave an upvote. If you have any suggestions or experiences you want to mention, leave a comment down below. I hope you like the deck.

-----[Win-Con Strategies]-----

The main win-con strategy I had in mind with the deck involves beating down with the Big Dino. With commander damage, it is essentially a three-turn clock, but we can speed that up with some of our lands like Slayers' Stronghold or Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion. We can actually present lethal the turn Zacama comes out if we have these two utility lands and the necessary mana to activate them after he is cast. I also wanted to have strategies to keep Zacama around so he can keep activating his Lightning Bolt ability or Healing Salve effect. So there are cards to protect him from removal, such as Boros Charm, Restoration Angel, Felidar Guardian, and Yavimaya Hollow to help try and keep him alive as long as possible. Again, the deck was initially built around Zacama, keeping him alive to try and control the board state, while also being a good beat stick to deliver commander damage to our opponents. The deck also has a couple of infinite combos that act as our killswitch to just attempt to end the game in the event things get out of hand quickly or we are on the verge of dying before we can even get Zacama down. The main infinite combos that are independent of Zacama are the Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker combos:

This can happen fairly quickly. We can easily assemble both pieces to the combo or if we have one piece and Chord of Calling, then we can easily tutor for the other piece.

The deck also has some combos that are Zacama-dependent. These combos involve bouncing and recasting Zacama to generate infinite mana:

With the infinite mana, we can sink our mana into Zacama to burn all creatures, destroy all artifacts and enchantments, and gain infinite life. We can also cast all the cards in our hand. If we use Temur Sabertooth or Cloudstone Curio to generate infinite mana, then we can bounce and recast our other creatures in play. At the moment, the win is not always guaranteed depending on the board state, but at worst case scenario, we can gain infinite life.

-----[Card Selection Explanations]-----

-----LANDS-----

Arid Mesa, Bloodstained Mire, Flooded Strand, Misty Rainforest, Windswept Heath, Wooded Foothills: Fetch lands for our deck to help fix our mana

Plateau, Savannah, Taiga: The original dual lands from Alpha/Beta/Unlimited/Revised. Fetchable duals to help fix our mana

Sacred Foundry, Stomping Ground, Temple Garden: The “fixed” dual lands from the Ravnica block. Fetchable.

Canopy Vista, Cinder Glade: The not as good dual lands in our colors. However, if the criterion is met, they essentially become OG duals.

Clifftop Retreat, Rootbound Crag, Sunpetal Grove: The checklands in our colors to add more redundancy to our color fixing.

Forest, Mountain, Plains, Snow-Covered Forest, Snow-Covered Mountain, Snow-Covered Plains: Our basics for the deck. I split between Snow-Covered basics and regular basics to better fuel Field of the Dead.

Command Tower and Jungle Shrine help us by tapping for all of our colors. Command Tower is a staple for all multicolor EDH decks.

Cavern of Souls: Helps to give the Big Dino uncounterable. Being able to cast Zacama without it being countered plays an important role in our game strategy, as our combo pieces such as Temur Sabertooth, Cloudstone Curio, and Sanctum of Eternity, require us to bounce Zacama and successfully recast him to get his ETB trigger. Could also be beneficial for naming something else if you really wanted something to land without it being countered (i.e. Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker)

Field of the Dead: Being someone who enjoys playing lands, I thought this was a wonderful/powerful card when it was spoiled. This gives us another axis to attack while we are playing our lands. It has been fairly easy to make Field of the Dead active.

Reliquary Tower: Good for preventing us from discarding at the end step.

Sanctum of Eternity: Combo piece with our commander. Having this land in play, with Zacama and a sufficient number of lands to generate 11+ mana, we can bounce and recast Zacama as much as we so choose. If we can make 12 mana off our lands, this creates an infinite mana engine that we can sink into Zacama. Best case scenario, we nuke the board of artifacts, creatures, and enchantments. Worst case scenario, we gain infinite life.

Slayers' Stronghold: This is our haste-enabler for the deck. Gives Zacama a small buff as well, which could be useful in conjunction with this next land card…

Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion: Activates to give our creatures double-strike. Could be used in situational circumstances (giving a blocking creature double-strike, play politics with the table, etc.). In combination with Slayers' Stronghold, this gives Zacama the power necessary to make a single lethal swing on a player with commander damage, and it’s possible to do it on the turn he comes down if you control both lands.

Temple of the False God: A land that generates two mana for us. It does have a stipulation that might not be beneficial in the early game. I wasn’t looking to have this deck be overly optimal or competitive, but if you really wanted to, you could substitute this card for Ancient Tomb. Zacama has life gain that could counteract the life lost from Ancient Tomb.

Yavimaya Hollow: Great utility land to be able to regenerate Zacama for just only one green mana. It might be a nonbo with our Wrath of God, but I’m ok with accepting that. If it does bother you, maybe replace Wrath of God for Day of Judgment.

-----CREATURES-----

Beast Whisperer: Whenever we cast a creature spell, we draw a card. Great in normal circumstances. If we can get our creature bouncing loop going, we can draw our deck and cast all our spells.

Collector Ouphe: Circumstantial creature we have in our deck to help combat against artifact-based decks. Could be replaced for something else if you don’t feel the need. If I were to replace it, I might put in another creature that draws cards on ETB, like Wall of Blossoms.

Courser of Kruphix: Let’s us look at the top card of our library. Gives us some “pseudo-card advantage” by letting us play lands off the top of our deck. Has some good synergies with Sensei's Divining Top to look through the top few cards of our deck to play lands.

Dragonlord Dromoka: Big dragon creature beat stick. Can’t be countered and has flying and lifelink. The key text for why I added it was the effect that our opponents cannot interact on our turn. This helps us get our creature/bounce loop combos off without being interrupted. Could easily be replaced for a cheaper creature option like Grand Abolisher if you want. The great thing is if you have 9 lands in play, you could play Zacama, untap all your lands, and then hold up Chord of Calling for X=7 or less, which can allow us to grab this at instant-speed.

Dryad of the Ilysian Grove: New enchantment creature from Theros Beyond Death. Lets us play an additional land and has a Chromatic Lantern effect as well.

Elvish Rejuvenator: This creature ETB’s to select a land from the top five cards of our library and put it into play. Can greatly be abused when we have either Temur Sabertooth or Cloudstone Curio in play.

Eternal Witness: Great recursion effect on a creature.

Felidar Guardian: Combo piece with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Can also be used to gain more value off our ETB creatures. Can be tutored out of our library in a pinch with Chord of Calling to counter against targeted removal.

Gisela, Blade of Goldnight: This creature can be substituted for something else. I think this card is win more, but could have its circumstances. The great thing is if you have 9 lands in play, you could play Zacama, untap all your lands, and then hold up Chord of Calling for X=7, which can allow us to grab this at instant-speed.

Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma: Mainly in the deck because it reduces the cost of our big creatures. Though I may not have enough big creatures to warrant playing this card, so in later iterations, it might get cut for something else that could be more useful.

Karmic Guide: Creature recursion for our deck.

Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker: Combo card. Infinite combos with multiple creatures in our deck. At worst, it makes tokens of our ETB creatures and can give us more value.

Mina and Denn, Wildborn: This creature was mainly put in the deck because it is a big body creature that gives us extra land drops. The second ability might not be worth anything for us. Zacama already has trample and we don’t have too many big creatures that need trample. In niche situations, maybe we could be political and give our opponent’s creatures trample. Another scenario I was thinking about was whether we had Mirari's Wake and Field of the Dead in play, we could bounce our lands and replay them to trigger Field of the Dead to give us Zombie tokens. But besides that, it might get cut for something else that could be more useful.

Oracle of Mul Daya: Staple creature for all green EDH decks that involve lands matter. We can play an additional land each turn. Lets us play the top card of our deck if it’s a land. Can also synergize with Sensei's Divining Top to dig deeper into our library to find those extra lands. Great card.

Reclamation Sage: Naturalize on a creature that can be tutored with Chord of Calling if we need it or can be bounced with Temur Sabertooth or Cloudstone Curio to just absolutely wreck an artifacts player or enchantress player. To the same effect, I’ve also considered adding Acidic Slime to the deck as well, since it has a similar effect, but also can hit lands, which is great if we are in a situation where we have infinite mana and infinite bounce but don’t have a way to draw cards from our deck. We could infinitely recast Acidic Slime and destroy all of our opponents’ lands.

Restoration Angel: Combo piece with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Situational creature we can use to protect Zacama the turn after we cast it or other important creatures we may have. Can be tutored with Chord of Calling as well.

Ripjaw Raptor: This card was initially put in the deck because I was playing Pyrohemia in the deck. The dino is a big body creature that lets us draw cards when he is dealt damage. Might be lackluster now that my original purpose for putting the card in the deck was removed. Maybe it is still worth its spot. It can be bolted by Zacama and still live to trigger the card draw and can serve as a decent blocker that draws us cards. It might get cut for another card that could serve a better purpose.

Scavenging Ooze: Flexible creature to deal with the graveyard-centric decks. Can be tutored out with Chord of Calling in a pinch to prevent a combo kill that requires creatures in the graveyard. If your meta is not heavy on that particular strategy, this card can be substituted for something else.

Seedborn Muse: Lets us untap our lands at the beginning of each opponent’s untap step. Which means more Lightning Bolts, more Naturalizes, and more Healing Salves for us.

Solemn Simulacrum: The sad robot ramps us a basic land when he enters the battlefield and draws us a card when he dies. We are in green, and this effect might not be necessary. With more plays, I’ll have a better understanding if this card is worth the slot or can be cut for something else.

Sun Titan: Big body creature that ETBs to return permanents to play. Does the same thing when it attacks. It is great to flicker/bounce to get back our fetch lands to ramp our gameplans.

Temur Sabertooth: Combo creature. With the necessary lands, we can get infinite mana with Zacama. The infinite mana can then be used to bounce/recast our other creatures in play. We cast all the spells in our hand. Worst case scenario, we gain infinite life with Zacama and pass the turn.

Wall of Omens: Card draw on a creature. Great for us to flicker/bounce and draw extra cards.

Wayward Swordtooth: “Carry on my wayward son!” Big body creature for cheap mana cost. Playing extra lands is ultimately why this card is in the deck.

Wood Elves: Mana ramp on a creature. Great for us to flicker/bounce and gain extra lands.

Zealous Conscripts: Combo piece with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Being able to take other people’s permanents for turn (like planeswalkers) is great for us.

-----INSTANTS-----

Boros Charm: Can give Zacama double strike to take out an opponent with commander damage or we can protect all of our permanents in a pinch by granting them indestructible.

Chord of Calling: Tutor that lets us find our combo pieces. Whether it is for Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or for its other combo parts. Some heads-up plays can be made with this card by tutoring for a flicker effect (Restoration Angel or Felidar Guardian) in response to targeted removal on Zacama. From my experience, it is better to choose Restoration Angel over Felidar Guardian in those instances because it can trigger our Elemental Bond (circumstantial) or if we have Temur Sabertooth in play, we can bounce Restoration Angel back to our hand and always have this shield to protect our creatures. Also lets us easily tutor for our narrow creatures that can give us the advantage in certain matchups (Collector Ouphe for artifacts players, Scavenging Ooze for graveyard-centric decks, etc).

Enlightened Tutor: Lets us tutor for Cloudstone Curio mainly. But we can also tutor for certain enchantment creatures (Courser of Kruphix or Dryad of the Ilysian Grove) or some card draw enchantments.

Momentous Fall: Great to use if we are super ahead in game to where we could just sacrifice Zacama to gain life. Its main purpose is for sacrificing Zacama in response to a board wipe.

Nature's Claim: Cheap removal. The extra life gain we give to our opponent should be negligible.

Path to Exile: Cheap removal. The extra land we give our opponent should be negligible. There could be some corner cases where we need to actually path our own creature to gain extra lands.

Swords to Plowshare: Cheap removal. The extra life gain we give to our opponent should be negligible.

-----PLANESWALKERS-----

Garruk, Primal Hunter: I mainly have only used this planeswalker for his minus ability. 5 mana draw 9 cards seems to be the going rate for our card draw spells. We could also get Garruk down before we play Zacama and he is able to protect himself with his plus ability by making creatures.

-----SORCERIES-----

Nature's Lore, Farseek, Explore, Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Explosive Vegetation, Skyshroud Claim, Hour of Promise, Traverse the Outlands: This is our spectrum of ramp spells for our deck. I’m not sold entirely on Traverse the Outlands just yet. Might be win more. When I’ve played it, the card has been insane. I’ve used it on Zacama, where I maxed out getting all nine of my basics and at worst, I used it on Wayward Swordtooth and got five basics. If I were to replace it, I might replace it with Return of the Wildspeaker for the extra card draw.

Rishkar's Expertise: Great card draw spell that allows us to play a spell for free. We can maximize this with some of our big ramp spells like Traverse the Outlands or Hour of Promise, or for some of our more expensive creatures.

Wheel of Fortune: Great, cheap card draw spell if we are low on cards. Can also be disruptive for our opponents in the early game if we play this in the first few turns.

Wrath of God: Our only boardwipe effect aside from Zacama. Depending on your meta, you may want to run 1 or 2 more effects that are similar to this.

-----ENCHANTMENTS-----

Authority of the Consuls and Blind Obedience: Both of these cards serve similar purposes. I mainly just do not want to die to an early Splinter Twin combo from someone else. Having these cards ensures that their creatures either enter the battlefield tapped or can gain me life when a creature enters play.

Elemental Bond: Let’s us draw cards when big creatures enter the battlefield under our control. It might be a little niche; our deck doesn’t have too many creatures that have power 3 or greater. I added the card because it would be a good card draw engine in the event we can establish a creature bouncing loop with either Cloudstone Curio, Temur Sabertooth, or Sanctum of Eternity.

Exploration: Let’s us play extra lands per turn. If we can get some extra cards drawn a turn, we can really come out the gates quick with Zacama, getting him down as soon as turn 4-5.

Ghostly Prison: This card is to take some pressure off of us. Making our opponents pay 2 to attack us per creature may disincentivize our opponents from attacking. Also, useful if an opponent has infinite creatures but not the infinite mana to attack us.

Guardian Project: A card drawing card for our deck.

Mirari's Wake: Mana doubler for our deck. It also buffs our creatures too.

Rhythm of the Wild: Giving our creature spells uncounterable is extremely important for our creature-bouncing loop. Also, being able to give our creatures haste on the turn they comedown could also be beneficial. I think adding +1/+1 counters might be negligible, but there could always be a circumstance where it is important, making this card even better to have in the deck.

Rites of Flourishing: This was more of a political choice for me. I personally am not a fan of the symmetrical benefits that help everyone at the table, but in adding this card, I was hoping that it would not paint ourselves as a bigger target by letting others draw cards and accelerating our opponents’ schemes by letting them play extra lands.

Smothering Tithe: An emerging EDH staple for all decks using white, especially in a multiplayer setting. The extra Treasure tokens can help us ramp out Zacama faster. In a 4-man pod, you can easily generate enough Treasures to activate one of Zacama’s abilities in a turn cycle.

Stranglehold: This might be a meaner card to play in the deck. Preventing opponents from searching their deck can be backbreaking, especially if your opponents play fetch lands or ramp. It also stops opponents from taking extra turns. I know I play Tatyova, Benthic Druid and for its strategy, looping extra turn spells is important to get ahead. This card definitely might be a meta call.

Sylvan Library: Cheap enchantment that helps us get extra cards. The life loss might not matter with Zacama’s gain life ability.

-----ARTIFACTS-----

Chromatic Lantern: Mana ramp for us and fixes our lands to be able to tap for every color.

Cloudstone Curio: Combo piece with Zacama and another creature. In this instance, if we have the necessary lands, we can generate infinite mana with Zacama. At worst, we can bounce between two creatures with ETB effects and gain a lot of value.

Sensei's Divining Top: Great EDH staple. Put in every deck you have. Helps fix our draws in the early game. Has great synergies with creatures that let you look at the top of your deck (Courser of Kruphix or Oracle of Mul Daya). Being able to dig two cards deeper, we can further maximize our land drops. Can also be beneficial to have if you need to cast a card on top. Tap to draw it. I recommend prioritizing this ability only for the cards that let you draw extra cards.

Sol Ring: Obligatory artifact that goes in every multiplayer EDH deck. Period.

-----[Closing Thoughts]-----

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Casual

95% Competitive

Date added 4 years
Last updated 4 years
Exclude colors UB
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

4 - 0 Mythic Rares

60 - 0 Rares

20 - 0 Uncommons

7 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.41
Tokens Beast 3/3 G, City's Blessing, Copy Clone, Treasure, Wurm 6/6 G, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders LongShotDecks
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