Preview season is a funny time for all of us, isn't it? We follow spoiler sites or YouTube channels - or we don't. We pour over badly-lit photographs and ask for translations - or we don't. We consider all the possibilities for a new card or Legend - or we don't. Sometimes we just wait for the new set to come out, or the full set to be revealed, before even looking at any of the new cards. Before I wrote Magic articles, despite spending the majority of my free time playing Magic or otherwise engaging with the game (sorting, brewing, sorting, play-testing, sorting, and organizing), I never looked at the previews until the Prerelease. I let the cards I opened at the event guide my understanding of the set, and would update my Commander decks as I saw things I wanted to try.

Being a content creator for Magic is specifically interesting during Spoiler season. Wizards often makes very clear pathways for players, as it's a way of on-ramping new players into the game. An example from the current set is something like Greasefang, Okiba Boss. Nothing wrong with the Rat Pilot at all: it's an undercosted Legend in two colors with a relevant ability. But it's unlikely one is going to, for example, build a Spirits token deck with Greasefang at the helm. Nah, with Greasefang, you build Vehicles! You Trample Train and Smuggler's Copter your way to victory. That's cool, but it really only takes one of us to write an article and that's kind of that for a Commander like that. Go to a different site, and someone may have written something a little different, but it's by-and-large going to be the same basic structure: vehicles, ways to make them cheaper, and ways to pitch them to the 'yard.

That's fine, but we - the content creators - are actually trying to do something interesting with the Commanders we work on. We want to give you an idea you maybe hadn't thought of, or an angle not considered, or a completely new take. We can build stock lists all day, but so can you. We want to do something a little different. That can be a challenge when many of the Legends out there are fairly one-note. (There are, of course, lots of ways to make deck-building more interesting even when the Commander pushes you in a fairly straight line. Budget limitations are one way, and Abe Sargent does an excellent set of budget articles which really push the limits of how cheap a Commander deck can be. Jason Alt's long-running 75% Commander is another way; limiting your card pool, cutting back on specific effects, or otherwise following his guidelines for 75% Commander building can make for some surprising and interesting builds!)

Which leads me to today's Commander. This feels... pretty straightforward.

I'm pretty sure this will be the new Mono-Green Hydras Commander to watch for. It naturally ramps, which makes every subsequent Hydra more powerful. It also gives a relevant ability to every Hydra you play, since all of them (okay, almost all - I'm looking at you, Apex Devastator) have or can get +1/+1 Counters. There's a big, tramply, fun deck in there, but I don't think you need me to help you build it. (I recommend figuring out some Fight-based removal, though.)

But it's not completely one-note, is it? Since we've fairly recently been given other counters in the form of keywords, there's probably an option there too. Build up creatures with funny counters, and they automatically get Trample. That's cool. It wouldn't be as powerful as the Hydras, but it'd be fun and could be quite clever. One could also probably do an Equipment build; Argentum Armor costs a lot to Equip, but when you're ramping a lot it can get you there a lot faster. Heck, one could even go into Auras, though it'd be costly because there are fewer ways to get them back in Green (probably would have to lean into Eternal Witness space). Again, all reasonable - and not challenging enough to warrant an entire article.

So, what to do? I thought about it quite a bit. I'm reminded I spend a lot of time thinking about new players. I encounter new players in my playgroup, I write articles for new players, and I'm interested in helping new players find the game exciting and fun, not overwhelming or desperately without hope. That got me thinking: how would a new player build to Kodama of the West Tree? What about a really new player? What about someone who just started playing during spoiler season for Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty?

Then it hit me. I'll build a Commander deck around Kodama of the West Tree with nothing but cards from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty! If you go to the Prerelease or go in with some friends on a Booster box or something, you'll have lots of access to the new cards. You can open, trade for or just straight-up buy the cards for the deck since there will be lots of them floating around, and then you'll have, not a souped-up deck, but at least one which will play and you can actually get.

...

...

...

(and then I realized there aren't enough cards in the set to make a deck)

Okay, new plan. Let's build a deck with many of the cards from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty! We'll use as many as we can which aren't bad. Then we'll fill out the deck with other stuff which will make the deck play well, and we'll try our level best to keep the budget down on the cards not from the new set, as well as focus on cards from more recent sets so they're not overly difficult to get. This we can do. Ready? Let's take a look.

Kodama of the West Tree | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Kodama of the West Tree

• Creatures (29)
• 1 Allosaurus Rider
• 1 Beanstalk Giant // Fertile Footsteps
• 1 Bearer of Memory
• 1 Blossom Prancer
• 1 Circuit Mender
• 1 Coiling Stalker
• 1 Generous Visitor
• 1 Grazing Gladehart
• 1 Greater Tanuki
• 1 Heir of the Ancient Fang
• 1 Iron Apprentice
• 1 Jukai Preserver
• 1 Kappa Tech-Wrecker
• 1 Kura, the Boundless Sky
• 1 Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer
• 1 Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar
• 1 Murasa Ranger
• 1 Oran-Rief Hydra
• 1 Papercraft Decoy
• 1 Primal Adversary
• 1 Rampaging Baloths
• 1 Scute Swarm
• 1 Spring-Leaf Avenger
• 1 Tireless Provisioner
• 1 Towashi Guide-Bot
• 1 Ulvenwald Hydra
• 1 Undergrowth Champion
• 1 Walking Skyscraper
• 1 Webspinner Cuff

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 1 Jiang Yanggu
• 1 Jiang Yanggu, Wildcrafter
• 1 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar

• Instants (6)
• 1 March of Burgeoning Life
• 1 Master's Rebuke
• 1 Season of Renewal
• 1 Storyweave
• 1 Strength of Cedars
• 1 Tamiyo's Safekeeping

• Sorceries (4)
• 1 Invoke the Ancients
• 1 Leyline Invocation
• 1 Spinning Wheel Kick
• 1 Sylvan Awakening

• Enchantments (12)
• 1 Azusa's Many Journeys // Likeness of the Seeker
• 1 Boseiju Reaches Skyward // Branch of Boseiju
• 1 Careful Cultivation
• 1 Druid Class
• 1 Favor of Jukai
• 1 Grafted Growth
• 1 Historian's Wisdom
• 1 Jugan Defends the Temple // Remnant of the Rising Star
• 1 Retreat to Kazandu
• 1 Roaring Earth
• 1 Tales of Master Seshiro // Seshiro's Living Legacy
• 1 Zendikar's Roil

• Artifacts (5)
• 1 Blackblade Reforged
• 1 Bronze Cudgels
• 1 Ecologist's Terrarium
• 1 Ninja's Kunai
• 1 Seer's Sundial

• Lands (40)
• 30 Forest
• 1 Blighted Woodland
• 1 Desert of the Indomitable
• 1 Gingerbread Cabin
• 1 Hashep Oasis
• 1 Karn's Bastion
• 1 Memorial to Unity
• 1 Roadside Reliquary
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Sapseep Forest
• 1 Scavenger Grounds

Buy This Deck Export text format

The first thing I realized when I looked at this deck is this deck will play. It's no cEDH deck and it won't reliably beat a highly-tuned casual deck, but at a table of precons and otherwise generally fair decks, it'll absolutely hang. It has all the things you need - ramp, draw, ways to win, and ways to interact.

First up, let's look at the Kamigawa cards. In Artifacts, we have two ho-hum pieces of Equipment, but both will make a creature Modified and both are useful; Bronze Cudgels is a reasonable mana sink if we have a ton of extra (likely in a deck like this) and Ninja's Kunai can get rid of a problematic utility creature or even just deal that final three damage to someone. Ecologist's Terrarium is solid for us, providing more lands and deck thinning and able to Modify a creature.

We get even more out of Enchantments. We have a few Sagas, and one of the nice things about the Sagas in Kamigawa is they return as Creatures. The ones we chose either get more lands or put counters on things, both things we want to do. Roaring Earth is also exactly what we want to do, because we get so many lands and we can use those lands to put more counters on things and Modify even more stuff. Finally, we have a couple of Auras, all of which offer Power/Toughness boosts and Modify our creatures.

In Instants, we get a tutor (March of Burgeoning Life), removal (Master's Rebuke), recursion (Season of Renewal), counters (Storyweave), and a great combat trick (Tamiyo's Safekeeping). All are solid cards worth playing. In Sorceries, we get 8 power for five mana which are automatically Modified (Invoke the Ancients) and more removal (Spinning Wheel Kick). Again, all solid and worth playing.

We're running all the creatures we can without being completely ashamed of ourselves. The only really not excellent creature here is Bearer of Memory, which puts counters on Enchantment Creatures only. That means it can Modify itself and a couple other creatures, but it's not super-useful. It should, however, be very easy to get a copy of it; someone will likely just hand you one. On the other hand, we have a few creatures which are pretty darn good (Blossom Prancer, Circuit Mender, Greater Tanuki) and a few which are excellent because they Modify stuff (Generous Visitor, Jukai Preserver, Towashi Guide-Bot), and a couple which are just excellent period (Walking Skyscraper, Kura, the Boundless Sky). Don't be afraid to Channel Greater Tanuki early in the game for more land (we have plenty of big creatures) and remember Jukai Preserver can be Channeled as a combat trick. Two not-Modified creatures can become Modified mid-combat by discarding this card for its Channel effect, and therefore gain Trample. Take that, chump-blocking 1/1s!

With that, let's move into the cards which aren't from Kamigawa. By the way, the total cost of all the non-Kamigawa cards should be around $35. If you've been playing for a few sets, you'll likely have some of them and it'll be cheaper.

In Artifacts, we get Seer's Sundial, which is great for any deck hitting a lot of land drops, and Blackblade Reforged, which is also. Keep in mind the creature's power boost will happen after it's dealt damage, so it won't get the boost from the land it gets this turn.

In Enchantments, we get some doozies. Druid Class is probably the least interesting, but it's still great, gaining us life for each land, letting us drop more than one, and giving us some massive creatures once it gets to Level 3. Retreat to Kazandu puts counters on stuff (maybe those lands the Class made into creatures?) and Zendikar's Roil just spits out creatures. A couple of those every turn is never a bad thing.

In spells, we only grab one more Instant, Strength of Cedars, from the original Kamigawa block. Five mana is a lot, but considering it gives us +X/+X for each land we control, I think we can make use of it. On the other hand, Leyline Invocation makes a big creature with natural Modification, and Sylvan Awakening allows us to swarm-kill someone who's defenseless with a bunch of Indestructible 2/2s.

We also pick up a couple of Planeswalkers. Two Jiang Yanggus appear, both of which help with power and one of which adds counters. (Remember they can't both be out at the same time. Thanks, Legend Rule.) Also, Nissa, Voice of Zendikar is an excellent addition, making blockers, adding counters, and ultimately drawing us a ton of cards.

For our non-Kamigawa creatures, we have three basic categories (with some overlap): Creatures with Power and Toughness connected to the amount of lands we control (Allosaurus Rider, Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar, Ulvenwald Hydra), Creatures with Landfall (Glazing Gladeheart, Tireless Provisioner, Rampaging Baloths, Scute Swarm), and Primal Adversary, which is a fine five-drop and just gets better the more mana we have.

For lands, we have mostly Forests since that's what Kodama can get for us. We do have a few utility lands, including the new-from-Kamigawa Roadside Reliquary, which can be sacrificed for a couple of cards later in the game.

There are a few cards I would like to have if I weren't trying to keep costs down. Ashaya, Soul of the Wild, Avenger of Zendikar, and Cultivator Colossus would all be great creatures. Nature's Will would be fairly brutal in a deck filled with big Tramplers. And of course, Nissa, Who Shakes the World would be fabulous.

But don't worry. This deck will play. And it should be fairly simple and relatively cheap to put together; for about the cost of a precon, you can get a deck which, well, isn't a precon. And should win more games than the precons.

What do you want to do with Kodama of the West Tree? What cards would you add? Let us know in the comments!

Thanks for reading.