Competitive Marath (GRW, Naya combo)

Commander / EDH cgomes

SCORE: 23 | 41 COMMENTS | 14896 VIEWS | IN 15 FOLDERS

Finally! The long overdue update is here! —Nov. 3, 2019

It's been quite some time since the last update and we missed many interesting cards in the meantime. Today, I decided to review the three latest sets and make changes to the previous list. In what follows, I'll describe all the cards I considered and the ones I finally added to the deck (and what I removed to find room for it).

Cards added (and what was removed)

• Candelabra of Tawnos: This is simply a better Rude Awakening.

• Arbor Elf: Another card that I've completely missed before. It has the potential to generate more than a single mana, so we can say it's better than a Fyndhorn Elves.

• Elvish Reclaimer: This little guy fetches Gaea's Cradle, just like Knight of the Reliquary. However, instead of removing knight, I think we should keep both and remove something else. I like the Scroll Rack + Life from the Loam synergy but tbh, rack is pretty mediocre without its enablers. It's time to say goodbye to rack for now.

• Dockside Extortionist: Generates an obscene amount of mana in the mid and late game. I've considered running Temur Sabertooth to combo with it (generates infinite mana) but that's a combo that can be stopped by an opponent conceding the game before we can net mana with it. Also, infinite mana is very tedious to execute online. The card removed was Chromatic Lantern.

• Deep Forest Hermit: This is a better Deranged Hermit.

• Seasoned Pyromancer: Another solid creature that makes tokens and loots. It accomplishes multiple things. Removed Avenger of Zendikar to find place for it.

• Force of Vigor: Instant speed artifact/enchantment removal that is for free and 2 for 2. We're not a reactive deck but this is too good to pass. Removed Beast Within to find room for it. We're losing flexibility for speed.

• Smothering Tithe: This card has been mentioned to me so many times that it gets annoying. Listen, you should not include this card in any deck that runs {W}. It only works in decks that have a reliable way of spending the mana it generates. Marath is one of them, so it makes the cut here. The removed card was Final Fortune. I like fortune a lot here but maybe tithe will give us the tools to accomplish the same thing that fortune does.

• Finale of Devastation: Our 2nd GSZ but for any color and with an upside. Removed Tooth and Nail to find room for it. If we can cast TaN we win but it's so damn hard to cast it for fcking 9CMC!

• Light Up the Stage: I really like this card in any deck that can deal dmg early on and dorks/marath will easily accomplish that. The card removed was Fecundity. We are moving towards a more proactive role and Fecundity works better in decks that also run sac outlets. If I ever run them, I think Fec will come back to the main.

• Prismatic Vista and Sunbaked Canyon: Premium non-basic lands. Removed a basic forest for Vista and removed Dryad Arbor for Canyon. I've never wasted a GSZ on a dryad in multiplayer EDH and it's always an awkward card to draw.

Honorable mentions

• Incubation Druid: We can easily enable it with Marath but it's still worse than Bloom Tender, as it requires multiple things to generate more than 1 mana.

• Goblin Engineer: It fetches clamp (like stoneforge but slower) but other than that, it doesn't have many good targets in this deck and honestly, we don't play a whole bunch of artifacts to enable it.

• Tithe Taker: A mini-Defense Grid in the form of a creature that also penalizes activated abilities. But contrary to grid and abolisher, it doesn't really stop people from interacting with us.

• Dreadhord archanist: Solid creature but we do not have many targets to justify its inclusion here.

• Ranger-Captain of Eos: Here, it fetches dorks and reclaimer. Not good enough.

• Living Twister: It can double - 1 cradle mana and occasionally remove creatures and planeswalkers. I don't think we need it.

• Sevinne's Reclamation: This is a decent gy recursion spell. I might need to test it though.

• Veil of Summer: It's a reactive spell for protecting combos. It might be well suited for an all competitive table (I'd remove grid and city to also add blast duo).

• Brought Back: Interesting gy recursion card but awkward in a deck that plays defense grid and city of solitude. Cannot use it to protect stuff and once again, deck doesn't run sac outlets.

• Cindervines: Good disruption and removal but unnecessary here. It has nothing to do with winning or card advantage, and the dmg is irrelevant in multiplayer edh.

• Idol of Oblivion: We can enable it with Marath and other token generators but contrary to Slate of Ancestry and other "draw for each creature", we can't "break" idol of oblivion (it will always draw a single card per turn max).

• Shared Summons: This might be an alternative to Tooth and Nail. I might test it at some point but for now, I removed TaN and don't have room for summons.

That's it for now, folks. If you have any suggestions, let me know in the comments.