Reindeer God Poops Elementals [Primer-ish]

Commander / EDH Combo Counters Primer RGW (Naya) Tokens

olivebagel

Land (37)

• 1x Battlefield Forge
• 1x Bountiful Promenade
• 1x Canopy Vista
• 1x Cinder Glade
• 1x Clifftop Retreat
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 8x Forest
• 1x Gavony Township
• 1x Jungle Shrine
• 1x Kessig Wolf Run
• 2x Mountain
• 1x Opal Palace
• 3x Plains
• 1x Rootbound Crag
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Scattered Groves
• 1x Sheltered Thicket
• 1x Spire Garden
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Sunbaked Canyon
• 1x Sunpetal Grove
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Temple of Abandon
• 1x Temple of Plenty
• 1x Temple of Triumph
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse

Artifact (5)

• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Basilisk Collar
• 1x Illusionist's Bracers
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring

Planeswalker (4)

• 1x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
• 1x Elspeth, Sun's Champion
• 1x Huatli, Radiant Champion
• 1x Xenagos, the Reveler

Enchantment (19)

• 1x Anointed Procession
• 1x Aura Shards
• 1x Beastmaster Ascension
• 1x Cathars' Crusade
• 1x Cryptolith Rite
• 1x Doubling Season
• 1x Growing Rites of Itlimoc  ^Flip
• 1x Hardened Scales
• 1x Impact Tremors
• 1x Luminarch Ascension
• 1x Mana Echoes
• 1x Mirari's Wake
• 1x Outpost Siege
• 1x Parallel Lives
• 1x Primal Vigor
• 1x Privileged Position
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Unbound Flourishing

Creature (14)

• 1x Avenger of Zendikar
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Craterhoof Behemoth
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Ivy Lane Denizen
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Mentor of the Meek
• 1x Oakhame Adversary
• 1x Ohran Frostfang
• 1x Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1x Ranging Raptors
• 1x Ripjaw Raptor
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Wood Elves

Commander (1)

Sorcery (14)

• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x Cleansing Nova
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Day of Judgment
• 1x Farseek
• 1x Harmonize
• 1x Hull Breach
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Rampant Growth
• 1x Rishkar's Expertise
• 1x Shamanic Revelation
• 1x Skyshroud Claim
• 1x Vandalblast

Instant (6)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Boros Charm
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Krosan Grip
• 1x Return to Dust
• 1x Swords to Plowshares

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Maybeboard

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Gamble
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Regrowth

Creature (2)

• 1x Forgotten Ancient
• 1x Omnath, Locus of Rage

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Divine Visitation
• 1x Evolutionary Leap
• 1x Fires of Yavimaya

Instant (2)

• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Enlightened Tutor

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This deck focuses on exploiting token production and counter manipulation. Marath, Will of the Wild is the spark for the tools provided in the deck to go off. I love this commander. He is a big tool box in and of him self, and the flexibility he brings always makes for unique games with unique decision making.

Sort by custom to see categorized function of included cards.

Early Game

Focus on ramping with cards like Cultivate and Wood Elves, while drawings tools for the mid game.

A hilarious early game card is Forgotten Ancient. You will transfer an obscene amount of counters onto Marath and be capable of generating a threat the demands an answer.

Mid Game

You do the token shenanigans. Control the board through Aura Shards, generate a crazy army with Luminarch Ascension or Divine Visitation, or ramp out hard with Mirari's Wake... mid game lines are flexible dependent on draws and all powerful.

Ending The Game

This deck is constantly threatening a win. There are few ways to win through raw combat damage and a token swarm assisted by Craterhoof Behemoth or Beastmaster Ascension.

Generating a large token army with Purphoros, God of the Forge on board also ends games quickly.

The deck is also filled with the silliest game ending combos. Most of them revolve around a mana producer like Ashnod's Altar or Mana Echos paired with a token and/or counter doubler like Doubling Season, Illusionist's Bracers or Primal Vigor. The combos work by creating a token with Marath, netting mana off it ETBing or sacrificing, having marath add doubled counters to himself, and building enough up until you have enough mana and counters to kill the table with burn damage from Maraths activated ability.

Sometimes the combos aren't infinte, like with Parallel Lives or Cathars' Crusade but can still generate enough value to kill the table if they've already been chipped down.

Finishing Combos

Marath + Doubling Season/Primal Vigor/Illusionist's Bracers + Ashnod's Altar/Mana Echoes= infinte arbitrarily large tokens, burn damage, and colorless mana.

Marath + Ivy Lane Denizen + Mentor of the Meek + Ashnod's Altar/Mana Echoes = draw the deck, infinte mana with Mana Echoes but not Ashnod's Altar

Marath + Ivy Lane Denizen + Purphoros, God of the Forge + Seedborn Muse = 2 damage times the number of lands you have per turn to all opponents

Marath + Ivy Lane Denizen + Purphoros, God of the Forge + Ashnod's Altar/Mana Echoes = infinite Purphoros burn

... that hits the highlights. There are more combinations of the effects above but thats the basic gist.

Strengths

• The largest strength of this deck is that the combo pieces are all overlapping and good as standalone cards. Often combo decks leave you with orphaned dead cards in your hand, but I am happy to resolve any combo piece at any time with this deck because.. well.. a Doubling Season is just always great.

• Past the early turns, this deck is constantly resolving threats and interaction to keep you ahead of the game. Eventually opponents will not be able to answer everything and you should be able to grind out a win.

• Naya colors offer the best spot removal in the format, enough playable card draw, and fantastic mana ramp. You will almost never be screwed out of playing a good game with this deck.

Weaknesses

• This deck often has issues with decks that want to combo out quickly, or overrun and alpha strike on turn 4. This deck in this form cannot set up that fast or threaten relevant removal that early. You're often tapping out all early turns to ramp. Once you hit turn 4, a board wipe will allow you to clear the field and bounce back to when this deck can take over.

• Game ending combos are not often fully resolved on a single turn. You will often have to present a piece of it on one turn, then finish it on the following turn. Keen opponents will learn to recognize the components and pick them off readily.

• No blue is a real weakness.. turns out counter spells are really strong.

Individual Card Discussion

These are the cards worth noting. Anything not included in the list below I figured was self explanatory staple ramp and removal. Spot removal suite can be adjusted to your liking. Some notes about excluded removal in the section below.

• Anointed Procession, Parallel Lives, Doubling Season, Hardened Scales, Primal Vigor, Illusionist Bracers: doubles the value of your token production and or counter addition. Fantastic ways to create additional value with everything this deck is trying to do anyway, and can go infinite in excess and with a mana producer.

• Mana Echoes and Ashnod's Altar: These are needed for going infinite. Otherwise just good ways to generate gobs of mana for splashy plays. If your looking for a deck that is incapable of going infinite, these are the cuts.

• Aura Shards: This card when pair with Marath give you a dumb amount of removal. People will turn on you when you resolve this card, so be ready, but its value is extremely high.

• Basilisk Collar: Giving Marath death touch is incredibly strong. to pick of most any creature is amazing.

• Beastmaster Ascension & Craterhoof Behemoth: The best ways to end the game not including a combo. This deck does allow you to go incredibly wide and these effects will end a game very quickly.

• Cathars' Crusade: I love and hate this card. It is a pain in the ass fairly often to keep track of all the counters, but it gets overwhelming very quickly. The best way to use Marath with this card is to create one token, then respond to the Cathars' Crusade trigger by making another token, repeating until youve made all the tokens you want, then allowing all the Cathars' Crusade triggers to resolve. Doing it this way allows all of your tokens to have all of the counters instead of them having gradually descending power.

• Chandra, Torch of Defiance: Mainly included for the +1 abilities. More mana or card draw are always a good thing. This could be cut in the future.

• Cleansing Nova: After C18 enchantment decks became more common this card has become significantly more necessary The flexibility has been fantastic and the one extra mana isn't a huge problem.

• Cryptolith Rite: Another way to exploit your tokens for mana production. Massive value once you have a huge army on the board for more than a turn.

• Divine Visitation: Turns Maraths ability into make a 4/4 angel. This card is fantastic when it sticks around however it inst a necessary include. Its expensive to resolve, doesn't help you go wider, and doesn't combo, so its on the short list to be cut, but it 's really fun.

• Elspeth, Sun's Champion: +1 for token generation is nuts. Down ability for removal is also nuts, and the ult can end the game. Solid card, no real down sides.

• Evolutionary Leap: Turns your 1/1 elemental tokens into card draw that's guaranteed to be one of the valuable creatures in the deck.

• Forgotten Ancient: I go back and forth debating the merits of this card seemingly every day. It allows you to get around the issue of having to kill Marath to make him bigger, but often it just makes Marath service-ably large. Possible future cut, but its interesting to play around.

• Green Sun's Zenith: Fantastic flexible tutor. I've never upset to see this card. Early game it grabs Birds of Paradise, mid game grabs a ramp or card draw value creature, and late game tutors up a finisher in Craterhoof Behemoth or Ivy Lane Denizen to combo out.

• Growing Rites of Itlimoc  : Will often miss on ETB, but can usually flip on the first turn then afterwards generate tons of mana. I hold off on resolving this until I can get it to flip immediately as it becomes significantly more difficult to remove.

• Huatli, Radiant Champion: Still testing this card, but the upside is so insane I cant resist the temptation to try it. Ideally, you resolve it, +x to get her in ult range, then ult next turn. Now Marath lets you pay to draw a card.

• Impact Tremors & Purphoros, God of the Forge: Other finite win conditions. Impact Tremors could be cut but Purphoros, God of the Forge I've found to just be way too good. The indestructible and double damage output makes him a real problem. It is also almost impossible to make him be creature due to the dearth of red on the deck.

• Ivy Lane Denizen: Good as a combo piece and individual include. This card allows Marath to create a 1/1 elemental with out losing counters. Combine this effect with a mana generator and you can make an infinite number of 1/1s.

• Luminarch Ascension: Fantastic mana sink and aggressive early play.

• Mentor of the Meek: Easily exploited card draw.

• Mirari's Wake: When this sticks around, the mana it can generate is ridiculous. Possible cut as it does suck to have it blown up immediately, which it will be if your pod threat assessment is functional. Noteworth non-combo is that the anthem effect means that Marath can be stuck alive with no +1/+1 counters on him, making it impossible to kill himself to reset. This means that once he gets down to his last +1/+1 counter, it must be used to ping himself or he will be stuck alive.

• Omnath, Locus of Rage: Still testing, but the idea is that he triggers off of all Maraths elementals. Testing to see what crazy things can happen with him around. Also good as a token generator on his own.

• Ranging Raptors & Ripjaw Raptor: Exploitable enrage effects that can be triggered with Marath. There a few more of these discussed in the section below, but I've found these two to be the best.

• Skullclamp: Obnoxiously strong card draw. With Marath online this is a repeatable draw 2.

• Smothering Tithe: "But Olivebagel, you're in green why are you running smothering tithe" Because this card is way too damn strong and becomes completely degenerate with a token doubler, which we happen to run 4 of.

• Sylvan Library: One of my favorite cards. Completely worth the investment.

• Xenagos, the Reveler: Capable of generating tons of mana.

Leave a comment below if you want more detail, dont like my reasoning, or didn't see me mention a card you would like discussed.

Notewothy Exclusions

These are cards I have tried to run and didn't like, see in many lists and dont like, or help take the deck a different direction.

Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Zealous Conscripts, Felidar Guardian and Birthing Pod: These 4 cards along with others are the core to taking this deck to another level. These allow the deck to win through another combo line, tutor able by birthing bod. A tuned deck with these included would like cut most of the over run effects and excessive token generation, and add stax effects and hatebears in their place. This deck is very viable, just not what I 'm trying to focus on with this iteration.

Bellowing Aegisaur, Silverclad Ferocidons, Trapjaw Tyrant, Polyraptor: Interesting valuable enrage triggers, but the cards themselves I've felt are too individually high cost to justify the include as this deck has become more streamlined.

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite: Decent include, but it is high cost and there are other things I want to be trying to do at the 7 mana slot. This would best replace Omnath, Locus of Rage depending on how you needed to play.

Mycoloth: I have no idea why people like this card. "But Olivebagel, you can sac your whole board and double or quadruple it on the next turn!" You are correct, but in any meta with a functional amount of removal this will die. Every time. And when it used to play it, it would die. Every time. Not worth it unless you can cast it with flash.

Pir, Imaginative Rascal: Another hardened scales, could be worth a slot. I haven't yet tried it.

Ogre Battledriver & Gahiji, Honoroed One: I've played with these cards for a while and as I subbed out token generation for exploitable engines, these cards became less good. If your Marath deck has more Siege-Gang Commander type token generating effects, these cards become way better.

Titanic Ultimatum: This card can end games. Worth including if you go lighter on the combo engines.

Assemble the Legion: This takes way too long to ramp up to an actual threat. If I'm going to spend 5 mana to do nothing, I would rather it be anything else.

Zendikar Resuregent: See explanation above.. but its even two mana more.

Seedborn Muse: I ran this card for quite a while, and it is serviceable in some situations. With this and Ive Land Denizen online at the same time you get to use all of your mana on eveyones turn to make a bunch of tokens and not lose Marath, but otherwise I dont think its good enough at the slot.

Top Ranked	Achieved #62 position overall 5 years ago Achieved #2 position in Commander / EDH Primer 4 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	13 - 0 Mythic Rares 42 - 0 Rares 17 - 0 Uncommons 15 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.27
Tokens	Angel 4/4 W, Beast 3/3 G, Elemental X/X G, Emblem Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Emblem Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Emblem Huatli, Radiant Champion, Plant 0/1 G, Satyr 2/2 GR, Soldier 1/1 W, Treasure
Folders	Active Decks, try, EDH, EDH Fammm, Temp interest, Riped off Stuff, Intresse, inspiriation, Similar EDH decks, "Come not within the measure of Marath." - Shakespear