Readers!

I really, really wanted to write about Go-Shintai of Life's Origin this week, but there are a lot of reasons I'm not going to do that. First of all, we decided we'd try to push me to use more Instants and Sorceries and be less reliant on Enchantments to fill out the deck, even though it makes so much more sense to play a permanent you'll get more use out of versus a spell you're going to immediately discard. That sentence alone should be proof enough that we have a long way to go and probably shouldn't take a week off of trying to rely less on Enchantments. One significant problem is that Kamigawa 2043 gave me a card I'm dying to play alongside the likes of Mind's Dilation and Assemble the Legion.

Isn't it beautiful? The boost to other Enchantment creatures isn't super relevant (though I never leave home without Sanctum Weaver and Dryad of the Illysian Grove), but doubling an ability from an Enchantment source is fantastic. So, what's the problem? I'll tell you the problem.

The one game in twenty or thirty where someone chose Enchantments with Merciless Eviction just to take you out of the game will now be more like one in five games since Farewell can go in any deck with White and isn't limited by an Orzhov color identity, and the player casting the Eviction has no incentive not to nuke your board. Replenish, Second Sunrise, Open the Vaults, Estrid's Ult - it doesn't matter, because they're all exiled. They printed a dirtier, easier-to-cast and easier-to-include and easier-to-justify-naming-Enchantments version of my least favorite card in the same set where they gave us the modified mechanic, Enchantment creatures, more Hondens and a Honden commander. Cool. Nice work, team. While people who never evicted anyone before are testing out their new-found Eviction powers (during a pandemic, no less), I'm going to be laying low and avoiding putting myself in a situation where I can get 6-for-1'd by the Nevinyrral player for a few months. Farewell is an incredibly irritating card and if it's going to be running around, I'm going to need to include fewer Enchantments. At least Instants and Sorceries will be safe in my graveyard once cast, it makes sense to make the transition now.

I don't want the whole article to be about what a baffling decision it was to put the "exile all Enchantments" card in the set with the "Return an Enchantment from your graveyard to play" commander, I'd rather talk about something I do actually want to build. Why spread negativity when there is a card that is positively in my wheelhouse? And why did I write about Atsushi first? The answer to all of these questions and more after I show you the pic of these sweet little number.

The Sky may be Boundless but the ground is very much bounded and could use some help getting started. Luckily, Kura can take some time out of its busy schedule to either help you grow your landbase or benefit from it. I'm extremely hype for this card. I actually don't know how much preamble to the deck you need - what if I just showed you the deck first, then talked about it? We're trying new things, and if you can't try new things after over 400 articles in a series (the first 75% article was published in February 2014), why bother? Here's my list, hope you like it.

The Lady Pit Lord | Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Kura, the Boundless Sky

• Creatures (23)
• 1 Ancient Greenwarden
• 1 Ashaya, Soul of the Wild
• 1 Augur of Autumn
• 1 Avenger of Zendikar
• 1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
• 1 Budoka Gardener
• 1 Courser of Kruphix
• 1 Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
• 1 It that Betrays
• 1 Kodama of the East Tree
• 1 Lotus Cobra
• 1 Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar
• 1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
• 1 Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1 Rampaging Baloths
• 1 Ramunap Excavator
• 1 Scute Swarm
• 1 Skyshroud Ranger
• 1 Timeless Witness
• 1 Tireless Provisioner
• 1 Tireless Tracker
• 1 Titania, Protector of Argoth
• 1 Yedora, Grave Gardener

• Planeswalkers (5)
• 1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
• 1 Nissa, Who Shakes the World
• 1 Ugin, the Ineffable
• 1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
• 1 Wrenn and Seven

• Instants (7)
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Crop Rotation
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Hunter's Insight
• 1 Momentous Fall
• 1 Nature's Claim
• 1 Return of the Wildspeaker

• Sorceries (10)
• 1 Bala Ged Recovery // Bala Ged Sanctuary
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Eldritch Evolution
• 1 Explore
• 1 Harmonize
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Life's Legacy
• 1 Life From The Loam
• 1 Regrowth
• 1 Rishkar's Expertise

• Enchantments (5)
• 1 Burgeoning
• 1 Druid Class
• 1 Greater Good
• 1 Myth Unbound
• 1 Zendikar's Roil

• Artifacts (9)
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Birthing Pod
• 1 Crucible of Worlds
• 1 Culling Dais
• 1 Extraplanar Lens
• 1 Helm of Possession
• 1 Nim Deathmantle
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Sunstone

• Lands (40)
• 20 Snow-Covered Forest
• 1 Ancient Tomb
• 1 Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1 Castle Garenbrig
• 1 Dark Depths
• 1 Field of the Dead
• 1 Glacial Chasm
• 1 High Market
• 1 Mosswort Bridge
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Scavenger Grounds
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Thespian's Stage
• 1 Urza's Mine
• 1 Urza's Saga
• 1 Urza's Power Plant
• 1 Urza's Tower
• 1 Vesuva
• 1 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth

Buy This Deck Export text format

I would like to start this section out by mentioning the Enchantments I wanted to but did not include. Garruk's Uprising, Kavu Lair, Abundance, Cryptolith Rite, Exploration, Retreat to Kazandu, Court of Bounty, Zendikar Resurgent, Fecundity, Evolutionary Leap, and Unnatural Growth. I would not have included all of them, but I didn't include ANY of them. Imagine the restraint it took. I actually cut some Enchantments, and that's something I like to avoid doing. Instead of focusing on that, let's talk Instants and Sorceries and why the best one in the deck is tutorable with our commander.

If the deck's infrastructure for playing lands from the graveyard wasn't in the deck already, we'd add it just for this. If you can find a way to pop the land back into your hand, say with Life from the Loam or Multani, you can have a lot of fun picking off their permanents. Let them watch their Enchantments get picked off, see how they like it. My guess is they won't like it much, which is good because we're not in the business of giving them what they want. Boseiju is a fixture in our plans, but mostly in our plans to play more Instants and Sorceries, something this Land functions a lot like.

If you want more sac outlets, I welcome it. As much as I tried to cut down on Enchantments, it wasn't possible to cut Greater Good because it's greater than any good card in the deck because it is QUITE good. Saccing our commander at will to bring it back is kind of what we're about and having ways to do it is important. Accordingly, I couldn't very well cut Myth Unbound, a card that seems tailor-made for this deck specifically. Just because I can't run a lot of Enchantments doesn't mean I won't run some I haven't ever run before, like Myth Unbound, or ones I rarely run, like Zendikar's Roil. I could not comfortably cut a single Enchantment from this list and it's already kind of... not painful, but itchy to run this few. I don't want to say Farewell to my board, though, so I'm keeping the number low and my expectations lower.

If I were inclined to run Abundance, this is the perfect deck for the Cultivator Colossus combo. I think if you want to run it, there are easy cuts from the Instants and Sorceries. That's my go-to move, though, and since we're trying to avoid getting sucked into the same old patterns, let's avoid it, actually.

The current list is a bit of a hybrid between go tall and go wide strategies because it seems to excel at pumping out 4/4 and 5/3 creatures. You can absolutely swarm with them, and I've also created 800 or so Scute Swarms in my day in in a very big turn before I smashed the table, so there are definitely ways to make sure you win. Making a couple of 12/12 creatures with Kura to menace opponents is fairly trivial as well, what's not easy is figuring out if this can go wide often enough that you want to include Craterhoof. I don't have it because there might not be enough creatures to bother, and if you have enough, chances are you're on your way to winning. This deck can generate a ton of offense and I didn't even include any Auras or Equipment because I think the creatures do enough on their own. That said, I NEVER include Rampaging Baloths and I did here, so maybe I feel like I've had to scrape the bottom of the barrel when in reality, the deck can go plenty wide. Some testing will tell, and I'm scrapping my very unpopular Koma deck because no one liked playing against it and didn't react proportionately to the threat I presented. Some commanders are like that, so why play Koma and have them complain when you can run a deck they'll underestimate. The names are similar, but how you're treated won't be.

What do we think? Have I unlearned some habits? Kicked my reliance on those sweet, sweet Enchantments I love so well? Have I turned you on to any tech you didn't know about? Are you mad I couldn't find room for Constant Mists? Leave it in the comments section. That does it for me, nerds. Until next time!