Tayam Relandimator

Tayam, Luminous Enigma has the Sun Titan trigger as an activated ability. Generally speaking, Abzan focuses on reanimating stuff, but this is one of the first Abzan legendary creatures that can reanimate lands. So let's play around with that concept, and try to win games by relandimation.

Ob Nixilis, the Fallen, Dread Presence, and Retreat to Hagra provide ways to turn land-drops into damage and loss of life. Beyond this, Worm Harvest can generate enormous waves of attackers in the lategame as we'll have a huge number of lands in our graveyard from milling ourselves via Tayam, Luminous Enigma or through the large amount of fetchlands we run.

  • Ob Nixilis, the Fallen is excellent in this deck, not only because it turns landfall into burn, but also because each land drop generates 3 +1/+1 counters, which can be used to continually fuel Tayam, Luminous Enigma's activated ability cost.
  • Dread Presence is a decent card in its own right, providing both draw and burn. When paired with Dryad of the Ilysian Grove, it allows every land we play to trigger the nightmare.
  • Retreat to Hagra is our last option. It's the least amount of damage we can output of the three but it burns down opponents equally, which tends to de-aggro the threat of the card.

Beyond Tayam, Luminous Enigma's ability to reanimate lands from our graveyard, we have plenty of ways to play extra lands early game.

To supplement Tayam, Luminous Enigma's reanimation ability, we want ways to put lands into the graveyard early and consistently.

Tayam, Luminous Enigma is a great way to play lands from our graveyard, but tends to have a target painted on its back. So we supplement that capability with some other cards:

Tayam, Luminous Enigma's activated ability costs three counters, which can be the most prohibitive cost of the ability. Having a deck that incidentally adds +1/+1 counters to things can be less focused since it really doesn't have much in common with the rest of the deck. However, Tayam does come with a built-in counter production ability that gives our creatures a Vigilance counter. We can leverage landfalling, or what our deck wants to do, to create tokens so we have more fuel for Tayam's activation.

In addition to creating tokens for Tayam, Luminous Enigma to place vigilance counters on, we have ways good old +1/+1 counters that can server to fuel Tayam's activated ability's cost.

  • Cathars' Crusade is the mac-daddy of +1/+1 counter production since it triggers each and every time one of our creatures enters the battlefield. This not only covers Tayam's counter-removal costs when we're producing creatures, but makes Worm Harvest down-right deadly.
  • Evolution Sage proliferates existing counters whenever we landfall. Even if it's just a vigilance counter, its worthwhile to proliferate so that we have extras for Tayam to consume.
  • Path of Discovery is a pet card of mine. I like this card because it triggers off of tokens as well as nontoken creatures. It has added upside in this deck as a dredge engine and/or a way to get extra draw in the form of lands. Drawing lands lategame is usually not relevant, but for this deck its just as good as drawing gas.
  • Retreat to Kazandu is a simple enchantment for firing off +1/+1 counters onto things, but those counters can start to add up very quickly. Hitting opponents with a 7/10 Arboreal Grazer is enough for them to deem this enchantment "dangerous". Also the lifegain clause is useful for offsetting the enormous amount of life we'll be paying to fetchlands.

We still want a fast start, so we're going to play a few cards that help us get Tayam, Luminous Enigma down on turn 3 instead of 4.

  • Arbor Elf is normally just-another-mana-dork, however when in play alongside Dryad of the Ilysian Grove can untap things like Gaea's Cradle which now has the "Forest" land type.
  • Avacyn's Pilgrim, Birds of Paradise, and Sol Ring are our generic entries, helping fix our mana for that turn three
  • Lotus Cobra is a bananas card. Always has been. In fetch-heavy decks it generates ungodly amounts of mana over the span of a game. It works very well to cover Tayam's activated ability's mana cost. Play a fetch, triggering this hissyboi to make a mana, then crack the fetch to tutor a land into play, triggering LC to make a second mana, then tap that land for mana. Boom you've generated 3 mana from out-of-thin air. Use it to activate Tayam and to reanimate that exact same fetchland you cracked. Rinse and repeat until you have all fetchable lands in your deck on the battlefield.
  • Assassin's Trophy and Swords to Plowshares serve as our instant-speed "you shouldn't have attacked me" answers.
  • Path to Exile can also punish attackers with the alternative mode of trading in your creature for a tapped basic land, triggering landfall at instant speed.
  • Knight of Autumn is an upgraded Reclamation Sage with the option of producing two +1/+1 counters instead. This can be used to get the counters needed to activate Tayam, Luminous Enigma in a pinch, since the Nightmare Beast also puts a vigilance counter on Knight of Autumn.

  • Pernicious Deed serves as our emergency boardwipe that is recurrable by Tayam if we really want the game to drag on.

  • Seal of Cleansing and Seal of Primordium are some great politicking tools (having removal on board opens up a lot of conversations and negotations) and can be recurred by Tayam at instant speed, allowing us to break up combos during other players' turns.
  • The Great Aurora is a fun green board-wipe that can put us far ahead when we have a dozen worms from Worm Harvest or clues from Tireless Tracker. The fact that we put all the lands into play before casting Ob Nixilis, the Fallen (if we draw it) is a bit of a nombo, so this card is more for the lullz then a synergistic pick.

Tayam, Luminous Enigma allows us to play cards from our graveyard, so dredging can be considered as a form of draw power. So our formal draw sources appear to be a bit light in this build.

This is actually probably the most important part of the deck.

This deck produces an enormous amount of triggers and searches the library a shit-ton of times a turn. This makes it fairly bad for streaming, and quite possibly tilt-inducing for your playgroup. I enjoy the deck as it shows off a huge lattice of synergy and is challenging to get all your triggers correct. The win-conditions are a little bit lacking, as its common to have enough landfall triggers to eliminate one player, but not the whole pod. The biggest problem is that you run out of fetch targets after about 2-3 solid turns of churning through your library. This might be a candidate for 50+ lands, but consistency is already shaky when having to deal with Tayam, Luminous Enigma's counter-removal costs. Overall, I think it is a decent Abzan entry into the relandimator category.

Competitive

>Optimized<

Focused

Casual

Jank

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Casual

100% Competitive

Revision 3 See all

(3 years ago)

-1 Academy Rector main
+1 Dread Presence main
-1 Nyxbloom Ancient main
+1 Shamanic Revelation main
Date added 3 years
Last updated 3 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

9 - 0 Mythic Rares

55 - 0 Rares

11 - 0 Uncommons

16 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.07
Tokens Beast 4/4 G, Bird 1/1 W, Clue, Elemental 5/3 G, Kor Ally 1/1 W, Plant 0/1 G, Worm 1/1 BG
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