Last week, I brought myself about ninety percent of the way toward building a mono-green deck, but I just couldn’t achieve the full hundred—the blue half of a split card was just too tempting. This week, I want to give it another shot, and by presenting a Commander deck, the very rules of the format will ensure the deck stay pure.

Instead of brewing up something new, I’m going to share a deck I’ve had in my Commander stash for a while. I pull it out every now and again so I can sit idly by before animating all my lands out of nowhere and attacking for hundreds of points of damage.

Empress of Beasts

• Commander (0)

• Divinations (12)
• 1 Barrin's Codex
• 1 Collective Unconscious
• 1 Compost
• 1 Creeping Renaissance
• 1 Harmonize
• 1 Horn of Greed
• 1 Jayemdae Tome
• 1 Knowledge Vault
• 1 Mangara's Tome
• 1 Seer's Sundial
• 1 Skyship Weatherlight
• 1 Sorcerer's Strongbox

• Vitalizes (5)
• 1 Llanowar Druid
• 1 Mobilize
• 1 Patron of the Orochi
• 1 Rude Awakening
• 1 Vitalize

• Rampant Growths (12)
• 1 Boundless Realms
• 1 Burgeoning
• 1 Deep Reconnaissance
• 1 Far Wanderings
• 1 Gaea's Touch
• 1 Genesis Wave
• 1 Hunting Wilds
• 1 Journey of Discovery
• 1 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
• 1 Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1 Ranger's Path
• 1 Skyshroud Claim

• Overruns (7)
• 1 Akroma's Memorial
• 1 Beastmaster Ascension
• 1 Craterhoof Behemoth
• 1 Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
• 1 Overrun
• 1 Triumph of the Hordes
• 1 Vitalizing Wind

• Extras (8)
• 1 Abundance
• 1 Dreamstone Hedron
• 1 Garruk Wildspeaker
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Lost in the Woods
• 1 Night Soil
• 1 Tooth and Nail
• 1 Yeva, Nature's Herald

• Plan Bs (5)
• 1 Howl of the Night Pack
• 1 Panglacial Wurm
• 1 Rampaging Baloths
• 1 Squall Line
• 1 Wolfbriar Elemental

• Lands (50)
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Terrain Generator
• 1 Inkmoth Nexus
• 47 Forest

Buy This Deck

For this deck, I started with the knowledge that I wanted to be playing Jolrael, Empress of Beasts. I’ve always had a bit of a crush on her—possibly related to the fact that Prophecy was the first set to be released after I started to play Magic—and while she’s never been an all-star, I knew her ability was potent.

To make sure her superpower is as potent as it possibly can and to make sure activating it is among the last things we do in a multiplayer Commander game, we’re going to need a few things:

• A bunch of lands
• Two cards to spellshape

Rampant Growth effects can help us with the first item, and card-draw effects (Divinations) can help us with the second. However, supposing we have three opponents with around 40 life, we’ll need forty lands to become 3/3s and deal all their damage in order for that to be sufficient. Forty is a lot to ask for, and with things like blocking and life-gain, I think I’m going to need another list item.

• Mass creature pump

Overrun effects can make our creatures bigger and magnify each land we have. The big problem remaining is that in order to activate Jolrael and then cast an Overrun effect, we’ve had to pay a bunch of mana. And since mana comes from lands and we want untapped land creatures to attack with, paying all this mana is making pretty deep cuts into our damage potential. Therefore, a new list item appears.

• Untap effects

Opponents will be slightly worried when we animated Jolrael. They will feel quite threatened when they see Vitalizing Wind on the stack. Then, they will be quite relieved to realize you’ve just spent 12 mana to make just one or two 10/10s with which to attack. And when you tap one of them to cast Vitalize, thus untapping thirteen more 10/10s, they will know the fear of those whom the forest consumes.

Ahem.

Rampant Growths

As you may have noticed, the deck is half lands. Since Jolrael starts in the command zone, the beginning library is literally more than fifty percent land cards. The deck relies pretty hard on not being under too much pressure or having opponents who are trying to interact too much.

We want to spend a bunch of time just drawing as many cards as we can and putting onto the battlefield as many land cards as we can. Deep Reconnaissance, Far Wanderings, Hunting Wilds, Journey of Discovery, Ranger's Path, and Skyshroud Claim all have the ability to put multiple Forests onto the battlefield. Note that we’re not looking for mana nearly as much as we’re looking for actual, physical land cards. Mana is great, and we’ll want a lot of it, but what we really want are lands to turn into creatures.

Burgeoning, Gaea's Touch, and Oracle of Mul Daya can let us play multiple lands in a turn, allowing us to pull ahead. And since our deck is half lands, we should almost always have the extra land to play. The Oracle even gives us card advantage by letting us explore from the top of our library. Remember to play from the library instead of the hand!

Finally, Boundless Realms and Genesis Wave are the big, splashy land-playing effects. Both cost a bunch of mana and can put a ton of land cards onto the battlefield. Genesis Wave can have unpredictable additional effects and only has the downside of sending instants and sorceries straight to the graveyard.

Divinations

Barrin's Codex, Creeping Renaissance, Harmonize, Horn of Greed, Jayemdae Tome, Knowledge Vault, Seer's Sundial, and Sorcerer's Strongbox are all pretty straightforward card-advantage effects. They may not all be the best card-draw spells—perhaps a Staff of Nin would be nice—but they can do the job. Most of green’s card-draw relates to creatures, and since this deck is land-centric and often doesn’t have many nonland permanents, Regal Force and friends aren’t as good a fit.

Mangara's Tome is risky business, and it isn’t actually card advantage. However, it does let us find the pieces we need. My trick is usually to search up things that would be nice but that aren’t essential—things such as Garruk Wildspeaker and Seer's Sundial. That way, if the Tome is destroyed before I am able to draw some or all of the cards, I’m not heartbroken. The same technique applies to Skyship Weatherlight, which actually does provide card advantage—at a mana ratio identical to the questionable Jayemdae Tome.

Compost is something I kind of threw in as a test and for laughs. Sometimes, it’s a dead card, but more often, it can just sit on the battlefield and draw a bunch of cards over time. It’s no Rhystic Study, but drawing for every Demonic Tutor and drawing two or three after a Wrath of God is quite nice.

Finally, Collective Unconscious rounds out the Divinations section. While it is creature-based, it can be great as part of the combo turn. We are able to draw for each land we have, often finding us that 1-mana Mobilize or Vitalize we need—in addition to an Overrun effect or two.

Overruns

Beastmaster Ascension, Craterhoof Behemoth, Kamahl, Fist of Krosa, Overrun, Triumph of the Hordes, and Vitalizing Wind are all pretty straightforward. You play them (or activate Kamahl a few times), and your land creatures are massive . . . and maybe have trample. Attack for a ton or two of damage. Also, Beastmaster Ascension has tigers on it.

Akroma's Memorial is an outlier in that it doesn’t increase power or toughness, but flying makes for great evasion, as do protection from black and protection from red. Haste is also great for the land—or two or three—we played that turn (otherwise, once it’s a creature, it can’t even tap for mana), and it’s also great for Jolrael, as it’s great not having to hope that she’ll survive everyone else’s turns before we are able to untap with and activate her.

Vitalizes

My deck last week used Vitalize to untap Gyre Sage and Viridian Joiner so they could generate a bunch more mana. This time, we want to do something different, tapping all our lands to cast useful combo effects and then untapping them all so they can still attack.

Llanowar Druid, Mobilize, Patron of the Orochi, and Vitalize all do this job. Akroma's Memorial and Lightning Greaves are great for the creatures so they don’t have to wait around a turn.

Rude Awakening, in addition to functioning as a Mobilize, also makes a great Jolrael, Empress of Beasts impersonation in a pinch.

Extras

The cards in this category either do more than one of the above jobs—without fitting cleanly into one job or the other—or provide an additional useful effect.

Abundance lets us filter our draws. With fifty lands in the deck, we sometimes just want a spell. On the other hand, we want to make all of our land drops, and Abundance ensures we do so. It’s great with Horn of Greed: Draw a land for turn, and off the trigger, draw a nonland.

Dreamstone Hedron and Garruk Wildspeaker both perform more than one of the above roles. They both make mana, which isn’t the same as making lands, but mana is just as important sometimes. And Garruk’s mana ability also serves as a small Vitalize effect when needed.

Lightning Greaves and Yeva, Nature's Herald both help Jolrael act on short notice without having to sit on the battlefield for a round. People might know what’s up when you cast Jolrael, Empress of Beasts and pass your turn, but when you cast Yeva and then Jolrael at the end of the previous player’s turn, it’s just too late.

Lost in the Woods was a great Dark Ascension addition to the deck, just helping us stay alive and making us a bad choice for the question, “Whom should I attack?” Why attack us when your creature might just become lost? Oh, and did I mention the forty-seven Forests?

Night Soil is just for utility blockers and to turn off graveyard shenanigans, but Tooth and Nail, nowhere near its potential power level in this deck, can find us just the right creatures we need at a given time—such as Craterhoof Behemoth and Patron of the Orochi after we’ve activated Jolrael and while we control an Akroma's Memorial.

Plan Bs and Lands

The Plan Bs are primarily for stalling and to help pretend we’re not up to something. A Howl of the Night Pack, Rampaging Baloths, or Wolfbriar Elemental can really shake up the table in conjunction with any of the Overrun effects, effectively serving as already-cast-and-activated-Jolrael, one-card armies.

Squall Line can be cast defensively—or offensively with all that mana—and Panglacial Wurm is the deck’s newest addition. With all the potential shuffling of the library, all the fallow mana, and all the turns of having an empty battlefield, it can be nice to have a giant Wurm to search up when it’s needed.

Terrain Generator has been a bit of a disappointment, but I’ve kept it around in hopes it really shows some power one day. It helps us make extra land drops, but essentially paying 3 for the effect every time we want to use it is steep.

Temple of the False God is just a bit of extra mana, and Inkmoth Nexus is a bit of a Plan B on its own. Just remember to activate the Nexus before you activate Jolrael—that way, it will become a 3/3 due to timestamps. If you activate Jolrael to make it a 3/3 and then you activate the Nexus’s own ability, it will set itself as a 1/1.

End of the Lands

Well, that’s about all I have for this deck and my favorite Jamuraan Spellshaper. Obviously, a Rout will spell disaster for this deck, but just make sure you’re in the right frame of mind when you pick it up: ready for things to go horribly wrong or wonderfully right.

And if you’re already looking forward toward Magic 2014 spoilers, I think Into the Wilds will make a great addition to the deck.

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com