Watering the Plants…. With Blood! [primer]

Commander / EDH Aristocrats BRGW Primer Tokens Voltron

tbone2072

Land (38)

• 1x Battlefield Forge
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Boulderloft Pathway
• 1x Bountiful Promenade
• 1x Canyon Slough
• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Fabled Passage
• 1x Forest
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Grim Backwoods
• 1x Grimclimb Pathway
• 1x Indatha Triome
• 1x Jungle Shrine
• 1x Luxury Suite
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Nomad Outpost
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Pillarverge Pathway
• 1x Plains
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Sandsteppe Citadel
• 1x Savage Lands
• 1x Savai Triome
• 1x Scattered Groves
• 1x Sheltered Thicket
• 1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
• 1x Spectator Seating
• 1x Spire Garden
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Timbercrown Pathway
• 1x Undergrowth Stadium
• 1x Vault of Champions
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Utility (22)

• 1x Abzan Charm
• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Bedevil
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Bloodthirsty Blade
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Deflecting Swat
• 1x Despark
• 1x Golgari Signet
• 1x Gruul Signet
• 1x Lavalanche
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Merciless Eviction
• 1x Mortify
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Parasitic Impetus
• 1x Ruinous Ultimatum
• 1x Selesnya Signet
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Teferi's Protection
• 1x Utter End
• 1x Windgrace's Judgment

Refinement (11)

• 1x Fiend Artisan
• 1x Fungal Plots
• 1x Goblin Bombardment
• 1x Huatli, Radiant Champion
• 1x Psychotrope Thallid
• 1x Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1x Rakdos Riteknife
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Species Specialist
• 1x Thallid Germinator
• 1x Utopia Mycon

Commanders (2)

Farming implements (19)

• 1x Anointed Procession
• 1x Blackblade Reforged
• 1x Bloodforged Battle-Axe
• 1x Champion's Helm
• 1x Conqueror's Flail
• 1x Cranial Plating
• 1x Darksteel Plate
• 1x Doubling Season
• 1x Hammer of Nazahn
• 1x Inquisitor's Flail
• 1x Loxodon Warhammer
• 1x Mace of the Valiant
• 1x Prowler's Helm
• 1x Ring of Valkas
• 1x Sigarda's Aid
• 1x Sunforger
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Sword of Sinew and Steel
• 1x Trailblazer's Boots

Farmhands (8)

• 1x Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist
• 1x Arlinn Kord  ^Flip
• 1x Champion of Lambholt
• 1x Giver of Runes
• 1x Puresteel Paladin
• 1x Stoneforge Mystic
• 1x Stonehewer Giant
• 1x Xenagos, God of Revels

Maybeboard

Removal (3)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Grave Pact

Protection (2)

• 1x Boros Charm
• 1x Flawless Maneuver

Ramp (1)

• 1x Black Market

Farming implements (1)

• 1x Basilisk Collar

Land (1)

• 1x Slayers' Stronghold

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Watering the Plants.... With Blood!

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A Tana, the Bloodsower and Tymna the Weaver EDH primer

Flavor Text

For too long farming has been held back by outdated notions that it is best to water plants with water, Outrageous! But now Tana is here to change that by showing your opponents the true best thing to water plants with…. Blood!

Now some obvious challenges come with using this new farming method, mainly the fact that greedy and selfish people like your opponents are unwilling to donate their blood for the greater good. This just means that you will have to implement mandatory generosity using the methods I will talk about below.

History

When I first started playing commander I kept on deconstructing decks that I had created to build new decks with different themes because I could never choose what theme I wanted to play. After a while of switching between different decks, I had the idea of combining all the themes that I liked into one deck so I would not have to choose between them and so, this deck was born.

Why Play the Deck

You will want to play this deck if you

- like having giant hordes of tokens

- like having a giant creature that you can hit people in the face with

- like attacking every turn

- like sacrificing disposable creatures to gain benefits

You will not want to play this deck if you

- don't like attacking

- prefer a more controlling playstyle

- don't like having to manage a horde of tokens

How it plays

This deck is a mix of 4 different themes Voltron, Tokens, Aristocrats, and Equipment. These four themes might seem like a strange mix with a weird strategy but it basically boils down to, hit people in the face with Tana, the Bloodsower and then use the saprolings that Tana produces to gain additional resources. The deck accomplishes this strategy through the use of cards from 4 different categories.

Farming implements

Cards in this category are all equipment or enchantments that help with the production of saprolings in various ways.

Farmhands

Cards in this category are all creatures or Planeswalkers that help with getting equipment attached to Tana, increasing her power, or making her harder to block.

Refinement

Cards in this category all utilize the saprolings produced by Tana to generate various things like cards, creatures, damage, or mana.

Utility

Cards in this category do various things like protect Tana, remove problematic permanents, ramp, or wipe the board.

Card Choices

Why Tana and Tymna

- Tana, the Bloodsower: The reason that Tana is one of my commanders is that she perfectly fits all the themes that I wanted to build this deck around. She makes tokens to tie into the Token theme, she gets more effective as her power grows which ties into both the Voltron and Equipment theme, and the tokens she creates can be sacrificed to generate resources which ties into the Aristocrats theme.

- Tymna the Weaver: The main reason that Tymna is one of the commanders is to gain access to the colors she provides but she does have other uses as well. Tymna's lifelink can gain a lot of life very quickly with all the equipment the deck has and her ability is generally drawing at least one card a turn and can draw more if the saprolings are sent out to attack all your opponents.

Farming implements

- Anointed Procession: This card is good because it doubles all the tokens that Tana produces.

- Blackblade Reforged: This card is a very good piece of equipment in the deck because although it does not give any utility or protection the sheer amount power and toughness it provides more than makes up for its lack of other benefits.

- Bloodforged Battle-Axe: This card is quite good because if your opponents do not destroy it immediately it will get very out of hand very fast. This card also benefits from the two token doublers and the multiple ways to equip equipment for free that are in the deck.

- Champion's Helm: This equipment is very important to get onto Tana because for some _strange_ reason your opponents don't like it when there is a creature with 5 equipment and 20 power sitting on the board and will try and remove it. This card prevents your opponents from removing Tana by giving her hexproof.

- Conqueror's Flail: This card cand give up to +4/+4 to Tana as well as preventing your opponents from doing any shenanigans on your turn when it is equipped. The prevention of shenanigans makes it so you can spend mana on attaching equipment to Tana without worrying about her eating a removal spell before you can attack with her.

- Cranial Plating: This equipment is another equipment that does not do anything other than make a creature big but it does make the creature big.

- Darksteel Plate: This is another piece of protective equipment and I think that it is better than the ones that give hexproof because it protects against most board wipes and non-white removal.

- Doubling Season: This is another enchantment that doubles the number of tokens produced by the deck but it also doubles the number of counters that are put on permanents this is not always relevant however some cards benefit from the doubling of counters.

- Hammer of Nazahn: This is one of the best pieces of equipment in the deck because it provides Tana with protection, makes all equipment you play equip for free, and it gives +2/+0 for only .

- Inquisitor's Flail: This equipment can be a little dangerous if your opponents have damage-based removal spells or if you don't have a way to make Tana unblockable but I think the risk is worth it for doubling the damage dealt by Tana.

- Loxodon Warhammer: This equipment is in the deck as an emergency lifelink card you can tutor for.

- Mace of the Valiant: This card doubles the power of Tana every time she hits an opponent.

- Prowler's Helm: This equipment makes Tana basically unblockable because who runs walls in commander, aside from wall decks of course.

- Ring of Valkas: This card gives Tana haste while slowly growing her each turn.

- Sigarda's Aid: This enchantment turns all equipment in the deck into combat tricks while also automatically attaching any equipment you play to a creature.

- Sunforger: This equipment is very good because as long as you have you always have an answer to whatever your opponents do.

- Swiftfoot Boots: This card is another piece of protection for Tana.

- Sword of Sinew and Steel: This card protects from red and black removal spells, stops all the red damage based board wipes, gets rid of troublesome Planeswalkers, and if you are feeling really evil you can destroy your opponent's mana rocks.

- Trailblazer's Boots: This card makes Tana unblockable because even mono-color decks run non-basic lands.

Farmhands

- Arlinn Kord  : This card is fine, it buffs Tana a bit and gives haste and the vigilance can be relevant but the main reason this card is here is that its a werewolf and werewolf are cool.

- Champion of Lambholt: This card can get really big really fast when Tana hits an opponent and if it gets big enough it can make Tana and all the saplings unblockable. (The Champion generally gets big enough to make tana unblockable from most things after two hits.)

- Giver of Runes: This card has two purposes in the deck it protects Tana from targeted removal spells and can make Tana unblockable.

- Puresteel Paladin: This card does two important things in the deck it draws cards when you play equipment and it helps re-equip Tana if she gets killed.

- Stoneforge Mystic: This card is in the deck because it is a tutor and tutors are very good.

- Stonehewer Giant: Once this card gets set up it is like a Stoneforge Mystic but better because instead of putting the equipment in your hand it attaches it to a creature on the battlefield. The ability can also be activated at any time so you can use it as a combat trick.

- Xenagos, God of Revels: This card is great because for the low price of five mana you can double Tana's power and give her haste. It does not become a creature very often because most of the permanents this deck has are colorless but that just means that it is harder to remove.

- Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist: Free equipping in an equipment deck, amazing. This card is also the only way to equip Bloodthirsty Blade onto our own creatures.

Refinement

Cards

- Fungal Plots: Two saprolings for a card and two life is a perfectly reasonable price given the number of saprolings the deck can produce

- Huatli, Radiant Champion: This planeswalker will frequently get up to 14 - 18 loyalty a turn after you play it which makes it very hard for your opponents to kill it with damage. Once you have all the loyalty you could ever want on the planeswalker you can start creating emblems that say you may draw a card whenever a creature enters that battlefield, The may part of the emblem is very important because it makes it so you won't deck yourself if you have too many creatures enter the battlefield which is a real possibility with Tana.

- Psychotrope Thallid: One mana for one card is a very good rate.

- Skullclamp: If we are willing to pay one mana for one card then we are definitely willing to pay one mana for two cards.

- Species Specialist: One of the main goals of the deck is sacrificing saprolings to gain resorsces and having a creature that lets us choose to draw a card each time we sacrifice a saproling is very good.

damage

- Goblin Bombardment: Being able to destroy any creature on the board at instant speed as long as you control enough sarpolings is a very good ability and can also be used as a deterrent to stop people from attacking you.

- Purphoros, God of the Forge: This card effectively triples the amount of damage Tana does to the person hit by her.

- Rakdos Riteknife: This card can be attached to a saproling and then tap to sacrifice the same saproling it was attached to in order to gain a counter. The card can then be reattached to Tana to make her stronger.

- Thallid Germinator: This card can convert saprolings into a +1/+1 buff and if that buff is put on Tana then it is converted strait back into saprolings.

Mana

- Utopia Mycon: More mana is more good and this can make a lot of mana.

Creatures

- Fiend Artisan: Allowing us to cast any creature card in the deck for only one extra mana and a saproling makes this card a very good creature in the deck.

Utility

Ramp

- Arcane Signet: Besides Sol Ring this is the best mana rock in Commander.

- Sol Ring: This is the best mana rock in Commander.

- Birds of Paradise: Being one of the few cards that allow us to cast Tymna on turn two and being able to produce any color of mana secures this card a slot in the deck.

- Chromatic Lantern: This is the only three mana ramp in the deck and the reason for it being here is that it makes us not have to worry about not having the correct color of mana to cast spells.

- Gruul Signet and Orzhov Signet: These two signets are quite good because they give the color combinations that our commanders need to be cast.

- Golgari Signet and Selesnya Signet: These two signets don't produce the correct color pairs and because of this I am thinking of replacing them with Talisman of Impulse and Talisman of Hierarchy.

- Lotus Petal: This helps get Tana out faster and can even let us get her out on turn two if the correct starting hand is drawn.

Card Draw

- Abzan Charm: This card can fill many different roles in the deck from card draw, removal, and a combat trick for Tana but for the sake of categorization I have put it in card draw.

Removal

- Bedevil: This card is here because it can target a wide variety of things but it might get cut in the future because of the color-intensive mana cost.

- Bloodthirsty Blade: This card is not hard removal and can be very bad if the game is down to two people but when there are more than two people being able to make your opponents most threatening creature more threatening and then forcing it to attack your opponents is very good.

- Despark: Being able to exile things is very good and the downside of only being able to target things with a CMC of or more is not that bad because most of the things that you care about in commander are or more.

- Mortify: This is just a standard removal spell three mana, instant speed, and two types of permanents it can target.

- Parasitic Impetus: This allowed us to take the most threatening thing on the board and force it to attack our opponents while also gaining us life which is a nice benefit because Tymna drains our life to draw cards.

- Utter End: 4 mana instant speed exile any nonland permanent with no downsides is pretty good.

- Windgrace's Judgment: 5 mana is a bit expensive for a removal spell but it can target any nonland permanent and it can destroy multiple things.

Board Wipes

- Lavalanche: This does not wipe the entire board but it can often deal with the most dangerous board state, do a lot of damage to the player who had the board state, and leaves that player open to attacks from you, all without touching your own board state.

- Merciless Eviction: This boardwipe lets us target it so that it deals the most damage to our opponents and the least damage to us however it is definitely the most awkward boardwipe in the deck and I am thinking of replacing it with Winds of Abandon or Duneblast.

- Ruinous Ultimatum: This card is amazing, it allows us to completely destroy all of our opponent's boards while leaving ours completely untouched and reading to attack our now unprotected opponents.

Protection

- Deflecting Swat: This is a great protection spell in the deck because it can be fetched by Sunforger, it can remove an opponent's permanent with their own spell, and it is free to cast when our commander is out and we always have our commander out.

- Teferi's Protection: It's the best protection spell in the game and can also be fetched with Sunforger.

The Nuke

Puresteel Paladin + Rakdos Riteknife When theses two cards are paired together they create an amazing combo that unless it is interrupted the turn it is assembled is capable of completely destroying an opponents board in just five easy steps.

1. Remove the equip cost of the riteknife with the paladin.
2. Equip the riteknife to a saproling and then sacrifice that saproling to the riteknife.
3. Repeat step two until you are out of saprolings.
4. Equip the riteknife to Tana while keeping open.
5. Do whatever you want because if any one of your opponents tries to stop you then you can make them sacrifice their entire board.

Top Ranked	Achieved #1 position overall 6 months ago
Date added	11 months
Last updated	2 months
Key combos	Puresteel Paladin + Rakdos Riteknife
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	10 - 0 Mythic Rares 56 - 0 Rares 24 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.76
Tokens	2/2 Wolf, 1/1 Saproling, Huatli, Arlinn, Copy Clone
Folders	EDH Decks, Interesting Commander Decks, interesannt, Bookmarked CMDR, snazy (EDH), EDH Brain Food, saved decks, Tana and Tymna, EDH, Interesting Decks, See all 12