Are you tired of dealing with artifacts? Are you sick of the speedy combo decks and 4+ colors at the table? Then, why not just destroy everything?
This deck is the end of the thought process that began by combining Mass Land Destruction (MLD) spells --think Obliterate or Jokulhaups-- with permanents that survive them --the commander, Klothys, God of Destiny, powerful planeswalkers, or powerful enchantments. I had been playing a Ruric Thar, the Unbowed list for many months prior to Theros: Beyond Death, and one of the most powerful things I could do in that deck was cast spells that destroyed permanents I built my deck to minimize the use of. Ruric Thar survives Wildfire and Destructive Force, but when it came to the most powerful of the spell group, the Ogre just didn't cut it, if I wanted to lean more heavily on that strategy; which I did, thanks to the rise of Flash decks not so long ago.
With cheap stax pieces such as Blood Moon and Null Rod, I could theoretically slow down the combo decks at the table long enough to do something big using my ramp. But that big thing was usually an attempt to win with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, and that was often disrupted effectively. Plus, the mass of redundancy that came with that combo didn't seem like enough to fill the top of my curve.
So, a few friends and myself had the idea of using Klothys as the commander. Since she has Indestructible, she survives almost every MLD spell, and not a creature most of the time, making her a difficult target for removal. While the ability is not as immediately impactful as something like Ruric Thar, exiling cards can be good against certain strategies (Reanimator, The Gitrog Monster, Dredge, or Hermit Druid), making mana off of lands in the graveyard is exactly what you want when you're casting MLD, and the ability to drain opponents passively can cause pressure with impact that increases over the course of a game.
The deck has a few different cores in terms of win conditions. The primary plan, one that can be executed the fastest, is the combination of Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and either Hyrax Tower Scout or Great Oak Guardian. As is the usual order of events, you tap Kiki-Jiki targeting one of the two creatures, creating a hasty copy, which upon ETB can untap Kiki-Jiki, restarting the loop with one additional creature that can attack; you make infinite bodies and go to beats and win the game. Great Oak has a bonus in that he can also create infinite activations of any of your other mana dorks or things like Fauna Shaman. One may ask why Zealous Conscripts is not included in this list; I had tried weeks with the card, and it did not produce as consistent results as the other two. Tower Scout is the least mana, and Great Oak is on average also less mana and has flash. However, the ability to take control of a pesky stax piece or other card to gain value or push through hate is valuable; so, if you decide to run Conscripts, it shouldn't make that big of a difference. But I would still recommend only 2 copies of that type of creature, as they do not perform any other function and having a single backup is sufficient for effects like Praetor's Grasp.
To make this combo consistent and quick, there are a suite of tutors. Worldly Tutor, Fauna Shaman, Finale of Devastation, Chord of Calling, and Eldritch Evolution can all find either piece of the combo. Of these cards, it is often correct to find a stax piece like Collector Ouphe or Magus of the Moon, or a value card like Runic Armosaur or Oakhame Adversary, if another piece is not in hand at the current time. This deck is very dense, so your win conditions tend to appear eventually. It is OK in this strategy to extend the game, even deliberately; because doing so makes the support cards and value engines quickly overtake those of your opponents, which are usually designed with a 4-turn average in mind. There are a few tutors that can only find one half of the combo (Green Sun's Zenith, which also often finds Dryad Arbor; and Natural Order, which often finds Bane of Progress or Nyxbloom Ancient).
But the cards that win the game on their own thanks to the combo, Tooth and Nail and Defense of the Heart, are the most effective and rarely look for non-combo creatures with their effects.
The secondary win condition is Mass Land Destruction. The point is to destroy all of a certain or multiple resources, resulting in a halt of normal progress; however, this deck is designed to leave you with the most presence and more resources after the Apocalypse, so to speak. The commander, Klothys, does this by creating mana each turn, and there are a few categories of other permanents that work in a similar way. Each MLD spell works in a slightly different way. First of all, Obliterate and Jokulhaups are the simplest to use, as they leave Enchantments and Planeswalkers alive, which should shoot you to the top position, if it does not draw a concession immediately. Then there are selective MLD, such as Decree of Annihilation and Wave of Vitriol, which leave creatures alive. These can be best used when you have the largest board state. Then, The Great Aurora is in its own category. Casting this spell is a science. Often the best use is to cast it with 15+ permanents in play, floating some mana if you can. This will practically guarantee that you gain the most from the shuffle. A few helpful notes about this spell. First, you get to see the cards you draw as it resolves, and you can choose how many lands you want to put into play. So, if you have 2 mana floating, and you drew Jokulhaups and Simian Spirit Guide in your mass of cards, you can put only 3 lands into play and immediately cast Jokulhaups to erase the lands your opponents found and leave them with nothing; balancing the cards you see, the resources you need, and the cards your opponents potentially have is the key here. Secondly, tokens count towards the card total, and so do commanders that are going back to the Command Zone.
Then there is Apocalypse. There are only two ways to cast this spell effectively. First, you can float enough mana to cast Klothys from the command zone and put her into play directly afterward. Second, if you have cards exiled with Escape to the Wilds or Commune with Lava, they stay playable after Apocalypse, to play lands or use floating mana. While the card is risky, it is the absolute in terms of MLD.
First, Planeswalkers; these are the best to have because Apocalypse is the only MLD spell that hits them, and they are your most efficient mana producers on zero resources. Xenagos, the Reveler is the best card to have in play, because any creatures that are left over can add mana to your pool for rebuilding or comboing in subsequent turns, and 2/2 bodies protect him from the smaller creatures other players may be left with. Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury can create mana dorks and destroy rocks; Chandra, Torch of Defiance can make 2 mana, draw cards and kill opposing dorks; Garruk Wildspeaker can create 3/3s for protection and double the mana of the first two lands you draw; Nissa, Vital Force can return lands to hand and untap them creating 5/5 bodies in the process; Domri, Anarch of Bolas can add 1 mana, and let your creatures take out opposing dorks; and Wrenn and Six can return lands to hand, kill dorks, and eventually add a large amount of resources with their Retrace ability.
We have enchantments that work by themselves to rebuild your board state (Sylvan Library and Mirri's Guile).
And Life from the Loam can regain lands without being a permanent in play. It works especially well when Klothys is your only survivor, because all you need is 1 other mana to solve your mana problems, like a land off the top or Simian Spirit Guide / Elvish Spirit Guide
(Primer in Progress 5/8/2020)
