Learning from the Guru

Commander / EDH BGW (Abzan, Junk)

Lonerider_94

Instant (8)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Mythos of Nethroi
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Utter End
• 1x Veil of Summer

Sorcery (4)

• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Farseek
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Wrath of God

Enchantment (5)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Cathars' Crusade
• 1x Doubling Season
• 1x Hardened Scales
• 1x Pattern of Rebirth

Artifact (7)

• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Blasting Station
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring

Creature (39)

• 1x Avacyn's Pilgrim
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Bloodspore Thrinax
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Caustic Caterpillar
• 1x Corpse Knight
• 1x Cryptic Trilobite
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 1x Deathspore Thallid
• 1x Devoted Druid
• 1x Dosan the Falling Leaf
• 1x Elves of Deep Shadow
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Fiend Hunter
• 1x Good-Fortune Unicorn
• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Ivy Lane Denizen
• 1x Karmic Guide
• 1x Kitchen Finks
• 1x Mentor of the Meek
• 1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1x Protean Hulk
• 1x Puppeteer Clique
• 1x Reveillark
• 1x Safehold Elite
• 1x Saffi Eriksdotter
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Strangleroot Geist
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Tayam, Luminous Enigma
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Walking Ballista
• 1x Winding Constrictor
• 1x Woodfall Primus
• 1x Young Wolf

Land (36)

• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Canopy Vista
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Fabled Passage
• 1x Fetid Heath
• 7x Forest
• 1x Gavony Township
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Indatha Triome
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 6x Plains
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Sunpetal Grove
• 1x Swamp
• 3x Swamp
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Twilight Mire
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Woodland Cemetery

Commander (1)

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Ghave, Guru of Spores was the very first commander I built a deck around. The deck has gone through around a dozen redesigns over the years, from a focus on tokens to a focus on +1/+1 counters, finally settling in on dedicated combo.

Ghave is a key piece of many of the deck's combos. For example, with Ghave out, any undying creature (such as Young Wolf or Strangleroot Geist) generates infinite colorless mana and infinite 1/1 saproling tokens with Ashnod's Altar, as you sacrifice the undying creature to the altar for mana, then use the mana to pull the +1/+1 counter off of the undying creature using Ghave's ability.

One of the deck's main win conditions is Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Walking Ballista + any of the deck's sac outlets. While this combo is generally well known, how it works is first: pull any +1/+1 counters off of the Ballista, pinging an opponent of your choice for damage. Since Mikaeus grants a static power and toughness boost and Undying to all your non-human creatures, the Ballista won't die. Sacrifice it to whatever sac outlet you have available (such as Altar of Dementia, Carrion Feeder, etc.) and it will come back thanks to the undying granted by Mikaeus, with a fresh +1/+1 counter on it. Remove the counter to ping an opponent, sacrifice it again, and repeat until all of your opponents are dead. This combo is important because Protean Hulk can get both Mikaeus and the Ballista with its death trigger; if you have a sac outlet to kill the hulk, you win on the spot.

The only other combos I want to highlight at this time are two recent additions to the deck, both featuring new cards from Commander 2020. The first card in question is Cryptic Trilobite. With Ghave and Cathars' Crusade out, playing the Trilobite with X=1 gives you a Trilobite with 2 +1/+1 counters on it. Pull one counter off of it to generate mana (note: the mana the Trilobite produces can only be used to pay for abilities). Use that mana to pull a counter off of Ghave, creating a saproling. The token triggers Cathar's Crusade, putting counters on all of your creatures. Use the remaining mana from the first Trilobite activation to pull another counter off of Ghave or the new token, creating another token and pumping your board with counters. Continue until you have an arbitrarily large board of massive tokens. With Corpse Knight out, this will be instantly lethal. Otherwise, Blasting Station or Blood Artist can get the job done.

The other new combo involves Tayam, Luminous Enigma. For the combo to work, you need Tayam, Ashnod's Altar and at least two creatures with persist or undying (say, Safehold Elite and Young Wolf). Sacrifice the persist/undying creatures to the Altar for mana. They will come back into play with a +1/+1 or -1/-1 counter, and also a vigilance counter thanks to Tayam. With the 4 floating colorless mana, you can activate Tayam's ability, removing the +1/+1 or -1/-1 counters from the creatures, and a vigilance counter from one of them (since you need to remove 3 total counters). Then, you mill the top three cards of your library and can get back a permanent with CMC 3 or less. Because your endying/persist creatures no longer have counters on them, they are ready to sacrifice to the Altar again, netting enough mana to repeat the cycle. You will mill over your entire deck, eventually finding Corpse Knight or Blood Artist to drain your opponents, or Animate Dead to get back Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, getting back a Walking Ballista with Tayam's ability to close out the game, or assemble another game-ending combo.

Date added	7 years
Last updated	3 years
Key combos	Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Walking Ballista
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	4 - 0 Mythic Rares 44 - 0 Rares 20 - 0 Uncommons 15 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.69
Tokens	Saproling 1/1 G