$50 Deck Tech - Karametra, God of the Harvest
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
Top Ten Planeswalkers
Welcome to the first top ten list for Game Grid Logan! This is an article format I’ve wanted to do for our website for quite awhile. Hopefully we can expand this into lots of different article types so keep a close eye on our website to see new articles as they come out. With that out of the way, our first list is Top Ten Planeswalkers. Time to set some parameters. This is not just about what the best are for competitive play, I’ll leave that to Nizzahon. It’s also not who is best in the lore or in commander, but who are my personal top ten in aggregate for individual Planeswalkers not individual Planeswalker cards. And the list starts with: #10 Nicol Bolas To be quite honest Nicol Bolas fell on and off this list a bunch of times. As much of a sucker as I am for old Magic lore, the various Bolases don't seem distinct enough to rank much higher than this on the list. If I had to, I couldn’t remember the difference between Nicol Bolas, God Pharaoh and Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker All that said, he was the big bad for several years of story and squeaks in at #10. #9 Oko Oko is on here for the exact opposite reason to Bolas. It isn’t for his lore impact, which is basically non-existent. It isn’t for his design, hot elf is fine but overdone. It is solely because of his constructed impact. Very few cards in Magic’s history have affected the game in the same way Oko has. So he gets to walk home with #9 #8 Garruk Wildspeaker You know what’s cool? Big green dudes. You know who’s a big green dude? Garruk. Garruk Wildspeaker specifically is a very underrated Planeswalker and good enough to go in your commander deck that has lands that tap for more than 1 mana. Got a Gaea’s Cradle? Now you got 2. #7 Sorin Markov Edgelords unite! Everyone’s favorite playboy vampire comes in at #7. His story with Nahiri and Ugin is very interesting and having a black mana character not be a villain, but also not really be a good guy, is a unique take on his character. In constructed formats most of the Sorin’s have gotten some play, and in the case of Sorin, Solemn Visitor he ran his standard alongside Gideon. #6 Ajani Goldmane Cat man? Cat man! Remember how Ajani was kinda everyone in the Gatewatch’s grumpy but loving dad? Well now he’s a murder robot and he stabbed a saucy old lady to death. The second of the original 5 planeswalkers from Lorwyn (and not the last) to make this list, Ajani is everything you want a walker to be. He’s themed well, he’s had big character growth. The only thing holding him this low on the list is that he hasn’t had a major constructed outing in 10+ years. Ajani Goldmane and Ajani Vengeant both saw lots of standard and extended play, but other than a brief stint with Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants, he hasn’t seen much constructed since. #5 Karn, Silver Golem How do Tron players count? 1, 2, 7. With a story that goes back to the earliest days of the Magic lore, The Silver Golem has had huge impacts in both the lore and various competitive formats. One of the few cards to have both a creature and walker he has had multiple Modern defining decks built around both Karn Liberated and Karn, the Great Creator. The robo-pacifist is also a major player in the current Phyrexian story and it’ll be interesting to see if he cuts loose on them a second time. #4 Liliana Vess I promise the rest of this list isn’t going to be The Lorwyn 5. Liliana Vess has been the premier black Planeswalker since walkers were a thing. As the most powerful necromancer in the multiverse, Liliana has had a huge impact on the story, from a cage match with Garruk (that she won) to a knock down, drag out fight with Emrakul (that she lost), she joined the Gatewatch just to get scammed by Nicol Bolas with the worst contract ever written into fiction. On top of the goth GF’s lore implications, she is also one of the most successful constructed Planewalkers, with Liliana of the Veil in the running for the best planeswalker card ever printed. #3 Nissa Revane Is it weird that Nissa made it but Chandra didn’t? Maybe. There aren’t a lot of 5+ mana walkers who are format defining, and even fewer tribal walkers. Nissa has been both of those things, with her Nissa Revane being a tribal walker and Nissa, Who Shakes the World being a definitive, format warping card. In the lore Nissa filled the role of the counterpoint to Garruk’s feral, strength centered, green viewpoint. She is the tranquil and slow to anger side of nature, that becomes an unstoppable force when provoked. #2 Teferi Akosa By raise of hands, who knew what Teferi’s last name was? Me neither. Teferi, like Karn, goes back to the very earliest days of the game’s lore. With Zhalfir and Jamuura both being settings for the first bits of story we got. The enigmatic time mage was always around but didn’t get his own card until Time Spiral in 2006. Being one of the driving forces in the story for darn near 30 years, Teferi has a lot of great moments. He also has a lot of format defining cards. From Teferi, Time Raveler ruining standard and being the only thing holding Rhinos at bay in modern, to Teferi, Hero of Dominaria …well ruining standard and being one of the few 5 mana cards to make a splash in Modern. Teferi has more than earned his spot in second place. Honorable Mentions For the honorable mentions section of these lists I wanted to get more perspectives from Sam and Davis. So here are their picks that weren’t already on the list. Sam: Gideon Jura makes it here as an honorable mention. This brawny mon-white soldier wasn’t just muscle, but the heart of Magic’s story for most of the Gatewatch arc, the glue that kept that disjointed band of misfits together. Whenever he’s had a card in standard, he’s always seen play, but has never really shined in eternal formats. This, coupled with the fact that his death has cut him out of the story, keeps Gideon just off the top 10. Davis: Daretti the trash-loving goblin pope who’s also half wheelchair. If that description didn’t make you want to know more then I can’t help with that. He definitely hasn’t done as much as the Gatewatch; in fact, he hasn’t done much of anything in the lore outside of Conspiracy. Magic’s got a number of planeswalkers that are far cooler than their current roster, and it’s a shame they don’t have more lore/cards for them yet. #1 Dack Fayden Ha! You thought number one was gonna be Jace! Well it’s not, it’s the Greatest Thief in the Multiverse! Dack has had… Ok but for real this time. #1 Jace Beleren Who else was it gonna be? Jace has been the face of Magic since Planeswalker cards first became a thing. Mr. blue accordion himself has not only had entire books and storylines dedicated to him, but was also the most expensive card in standard not once, not twice, not even three times; but four different cards defined how standard was played. In formats like commander, planeswalkers need to be good for exactly one activation since you’re probably not going to untap with it. There are multiple Jaces that are good enough for that single activation. There really isn’t another option for me for the top spot. Do you disagree? Leave us a comment to let us know who your favorite walker is! We hope you liked this new thing we are trying. If you did, leave us a like and a comment and hopefully we will have lots more content like this going forward. - Adam Godfrey
