You folks remember when we had those $50 commander deck swaps? I’ve never really stopped making $50 decklists, which means I have a pretty huge backlog of these things. So, periodically, I’m going to do a deck tech on one of them for this website, with the full list, suggested upgrades if you wanna throw some more money at it, and regular play patterns.
         If you like these kinds of articles please let us know and we will make some more! (and you can buy all these cards at your friendly, local Game Grid!) 

To start off, here is the decklist itself:

Commander (1)

(1)

Karametra, God of Harvests

Sorceries (8)

(1)

Ascend from Avernus

(1)

Decree of Justice

(1)

Entreat the Angels

(1)

Finale of Glory

(1)

Martial Coup

(1)

Nyleas Intervention

(1)

Overrun

(1)

Solemn Offering

Instants (5)

(1)

Return to Nature

(1)

Sanguine Sacrament

(1)

Summoners Pact

(1)

Unexpectedly Absent

(1)

White Suns Zenith

Artifacts (3)

(1)

Clown Car

(1)

Horn of Valhalla

(1)

Sol Ring

Enchantments (5)

(1)

Careful Cultivation

(1)

Felidar Retreat

(1)

Quarantine Field

(1)

Wild Growth

(1)

Zendikar Resurgent

Lands (38)

(1)

Blossoming Sands

(1)

Canopy Vista

(17)

Forest

(16)

Plains

(1)

Radiant Grove

(1)

Temple Garden

(1)

Temple of Plenty

Creatures (40)

(1)

Admonition Angel

(1)

Artisan of Kozilek

(1)

Avacyn's Pilgrim

(1)

Avenger of Zendikar

(1)

Bane of Bala Ged

(1)

Beast Whisperer

(1)

Breaker of Armies

(1)

Channeler Initiate

(1)

Chorus of the Conclave

(1)

Courser of Kruphix

(1)

Dawnglare Invoker

(1)

Decimator of the Provinces

(1)

Druid of the Cowl

(1)

Elfhame Druid

(1)

Elvish Mystic

(1)

End-Raze Forerunners

(1)

Endless One

(1)

Fauna Shaman

(1)

Fyndhorn Elder

(1)

Fyndhorn Elves

(1)

Gala Greeters

(1)

Genesis Hydra

(1)

Gilanra, Caller of Wirewood

(1)

Humble Naturalist

(1)

Ilysian Caryatid

(1)

Llanowar Elves

(1)

Maja, Bretagard Protector

(1)

Naga Vitalist

(1)

Ornithopter of Paradise

(1)

Paradise Druid

(1)

Pathrazer of Ulamog

(1)

Primordial Sage

(1)

Quirion Explorer

(1)

Rampaging Baloths

(1)

Reclusive Taxidermist

(1)

Rift Sower

(1)

Stonecloaker

(1)

Undercellar Myconid

(1)

Weaver of Blossoms

(1)

Whitemane Lion

For the first part of this tech I want to talk about Karametra herself: 

          Karametra is a devastatingly simple commander. Play a creature, get a land. So what do we do? Play lots and lots and lots of mana dorks and things to do with 9+ mana. Every dork that gets played nets us another land on top of the mana the dork itself makes. Karametra also has a fun interaction with the card Whitemane Lion. When the Lion enters the battlefield you must return a creature you control to its owner’s hand, which means you can return itself. So you effectively have a 2 mana, instant speed, rampant growth so long as your commander is in play.
          This also works for the slightly less powerful Stonecloaker, which also gives you a small amount of graveyard control. To really crank up the value of these interactions an upgrade that’s on the expensive side is Amulet of Vigor. Making all your lands come into play untapped means Whitemane Lion is only 1 mana put a land into play.

          For the dork section we are playing all of the basic single green mana dorks you’d expect:

         After these three there are also the slightly less good 2 mana ones with Paradise Druid being the best of the bunch because of the hexproof. There are a few 3 mana dorks in the deck, but all of them tap for more than a single mana or have another effect that impacts the board. Fyndhorn Elder ramps you from 3 to 6 without Karametra.

         The mana creatures are a place where we can upgrade pretty significantly. A glaring omission from this list is Birds of Paradise. But sitting around $7 for the cheapest copy it is priced out of the $50 list, its not a huge upgrade on the Llanowar Elves. What is a huge upgrade is Sylvan Caryatid.

          You may have also noticed that the only mana rock in the deck is Sol Ring.  You are generating so much mana with your commander that you do not need additional rocks to make the deck hum.  If you feel the need and have the cash, Jeweled Lotus is a big upgrade to this deck to let you play Karametra as early as turn 2. 

         There are a couple of ways to use all these lands we are pulling from the deck.  The first order of operation for them would be to use landfall abilities.  There are a lot of things to choose from here, you could go with low impact ones like Kazandu Nectarpot or Jaddi Offshoot , or you could go with the game winner that is Rampaging Baloths (stupid Omnath, Locus of Rage being red. He’d be perfect here). The other obvious answer is Avenger of Zendikar and now that he is $3 instead of $30 it's a pretty free addition to this deck.

         The last landfall card I want to talk about is Felidar Retreat. Not only does it let you build a creature base very quickly, it also lets you turn your army of stupid little green things into an actual game ending threat. It’s not uncommon to get 4 or 5 counters per turn from this enchantment and that ends the game very quickly if you have 6 or seven Llanowar Elves out.

          Now for the fun part: the X spells. There are a lot of X spells to choose from in these colors that would be fun to play, but the ones I chose were the ones that made lots of creatures and also affected the board in other ways. Martial Coup. is an underrated and seemingly forgotten Wrath effect. Both White Sun’s Zenith. and Decree of Justice make oodles of creatures at instant speed. You can play pretty much whatever X spells you feel like but I would highly recommend keeping Ascend from Avernus.

         This Baldur’s Gate rare is one of my favorite creature rebuilding spells in the game. Did you just get wrathed and lose all of your tiny dorks, but still have 22 lands in play because of your commander? Well, hit that undo button and get ready to punish your opponent for daring to Bolt the Bird.

          There are a lot of expensive X spells that I didn’t have the budget for but the first and largest improvement you can make in this section is Genesis Wave. This card can single handedly win you the game and pairing it up with another upgrade, Concordant Crossroads, can give you the win on the spot. 

          If you can find them, the Tyrannid creatures that have Ravenous are also great additions to this deck, but they’re tricky enough to acquire so I didn't want to spend a lot of time on them.

          The lands in this deck are pretty simple and abundant. I am running 38 lands, 39 would probably be better, but I am greedy. You want to run every land with the Plains and Forest subtype. I included most of them, but the harder ones to find like the snow dual and the cycle land. I went with Temple Garden because I had a bit of budget left over after I removed Horn of Greed. The obvious upgrade to this section is a Savannah, but I won't fault you for not wanting to get a dual for this deck (Davis might though). Another expensive, albeit very powerful, option is Gaea’s Cradle.

          Finally we get to the 8+ mana cards! Obviously we are going to play lots of Eldrazi, but since most of the Titans run on the spendier side of things, we will be sticking to the cheaper options. 

          Pathrazer of Ulamog, Breaker of Armies, and Bane of Bala Ged are all very budget-friendly options for big Eldrazi beaters. Pathrazer is hard to block making triple blocking it a problem if you have any instant speed removal. Breaker of Armies gets really close to being a Plague Wind against one player. It has enough power to clear out most boards, and if it doesn't kill everything it will definitely kill lots of things. Bane of Bala Ged is kind of a filler piece, but with better Annihilate it holds its own at 7 mana. 

          That brings us to the boars in the room. Decimator of Provinces and End Raze Forerunners are both budget options for everyone's favorite green win con: Craterhoof Behemoth. There’s a reason this thing sits comfortably in the $25 to $35 range. Combine this with Natural Order and you have a pretty clean 4 mana win the game button. Decimator and the Forerunners do a passable job of Hoofing people, but to really knock the game down in one turn, you need the big guy himself. 

          This list has been a pretty fun time, it goes from zero to game over very quickly and it rebuilds well because of cards like Beast Whisperer and Primordial Sage. Overall it plays very similarly to a lot of swarm green decks but with the added bonus of cranking out a X=15 spell when the table has finally answered all of your little dorks. 

         If you have a commander you’d like for us to make a $50 list around or want to buy any of the cards featured in the article please come visit us in store or take a look at our rares catalog here on the website. Thanks for reading and we will see you next week. 

-Adam Godfrey