My editor and I were talking about what to do for Naya. He suggested “Beast tribal,” and I said I didn’t want to have the column just be a bunch of tribal decks.

He then pointed out we haven’t done a single one.

Duh.

Here are a couple of things just to get us started. First off, when I build tribal, I build tribal. There is no “theme.” It’s an all-out commitment to the tribe, which means running cards because of their names and not running cards that would be awesome because they’re off theme. The one place I give a pass is lands—it’s no fun to not play Magic—but otherwise, I figure, if we’re gonna do it, let’s do it right.

Beasts don’t build things, they break them. No artifacts in this one.

Also, it didn’t seem right to build a Beast deck without the beastmaster himself.

Luckily for us, none of these cards sees a ton of tournament play, so the prices have stayed low enough we can run all three and still keep within our $75 budget.

Mana on this one is actually pretty easy. We’re effectively a green deck with a red and white splash. We have a few ramp spells—all of them let us fetch two lands (except for Farseek, which finds us a splash color), a few lands that fetch for basics (always grab a Plains or a Mountain), and a few duals to help the splash along, but mostly, we’re just basic Forests for days. The ramp isn’t serious—it’s mostly there for fixing—but an opening hand with Cultivate is almost certainly worth keeping, no matter what else. Also, has there ever been a better place for Contested Cliffs and Skarrg, the Rage Pits?

This deck has its fun with all its giant creatures. Gahiji, Honored One tells us to attack as much as possible, and he nicely encourages our opponents to attack each other, too. Most of the Beasts are formidable in the red zone, so whenever possible, throw them into combat. Paleoloth and Cliffrunner Behemoth are big, Rakeclaw Gargantuan can give a bunch of things first strike (remember its ability can be activated after Gahiji’s trigger has resolved, so our 3/3 Beast tokens can be granted Rakeclaw’s ability), and Terra Ravager will make the Sliver Queen player with the $500 mana base very, very sad. Once Thunderfoot Baloth or Siege Behemoth is out, there’s little reason not to attack every turn—there’s a very good chance the person we’re attacking will just die. Baloth Woodcrasher is super-cool when we play Terramorphic Expanse, crack it, play Kodama's Reach, and attack for 16.

Answers are harder, but the newish fight mechanic helps us quite a bit. Hunt the Weak and Prey Upon are fine, but Gruul Ragebeast solves a lot of creature-based problems because so many of our creatures are so big. Where Ancients Tread is more to kill opponents, but it can take out a troublesome creature in a pinch. The aforementioned Skarrg, the Rage Pits adds to the fighting. Beast Within can take care of any difficult permanent, but we only have one, so use it very carefully. Oxidda Scrapmelter and Batterhorn each smashes an artifact, Molder Slug kills them every upkeep (take that, Daretti, Scrap Savant!), and Indrik Stomphowler hits enchantments, too. Mold Shambler can even kill an opposing Planeswalker, though it’s better just to attack those to death.

Meglonoth tends to keep people from attacking too much—bestow it with Spirespine for extra hilarity. The other Shards of Alara–block 5-power-matters cards are great, too—Spearbreaker Behemoth making things indestructible and Spellbreaker Behemoth making them uncounterable. Ghor-Clan Rampager is best used as an unstoppable combat trick. Fangren Firstborn and Fangren Pathcutter both end games really quickly.

Titanic Ultimatum warrants its own paragraph, mostly because it’s among the coolest cards in the game. for the biggest Overrun available seems like a perfectly reasonable price, especially because if we time it right, we can simply kill everyone else in a single attack phase. Normally, theme decks in this column have one card that breaks theme. This deck doesn’t because it has Titanic Ultimatum.

Gahiji, Honored One ? Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (36)
• 1 Abzan Beastmaster
• 1 Advocate of the Beast
• 1 Baloth Woodcrasher
• 1 Batterhorn
• 1 Cliffrunner Behemoth
• 1 Drumhunter
• 1 Elvish Soultiller
• 1 Fangren Firstborn
• 1 Fangren Pathcutter
• 1 Garruk's Horde
• 1 Garruk's Packleader
• 1 Ghor-Clan Rampager
• 1 Gruul Ragebeast
• 1 Indrik Stomphowler
• 1 Krosan Warchief
• 1 Meglonoth
• 1 Mold Shambler
• 1 Molder Slug
• 1 Mwonvuli Beast Tracker
• 1 Nessian Game Warden
• 1 Oxidda Scrapmelter
• 1 Paleoloth
• 1 Rakeclaw Gargantuan
• 1 Rampaging Baloths
• 1 Ravenous Baloth
• 1 Siege Behemoth
• 1 Snarling Undorak
• 1 Soul of Zendikar
• 1 Spearbreaker Behemoth
• 1 Spellbreaker Behemoth
• 1 Spirespine
• 1 Terra Ravager
• 1 Thunderfoot Baloth
• 1 Totem Speaker
• 1 Tribal Forcemage
• 1 Wirewood Savage

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 1 Garruk Wildspeaker
• 1 Garruk, Caller of Beasts
• 1 Garruk, Primal Hunter

• Spells (20)
• 1 Beast Attack
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Fresh Meat
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Explosive Vegetation
• 1 Farseek
• 1 Hunt the Weak
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Peregrination
• 1 Prey Upon
• 1 Roar of the Crowd
• 1 Titanic Ultimatum
• 1 Aether Charge
• 1 Beastmaster Ascension
• 1 Ordeal of Nylea
• 1 Primeval Bounty
• 1 Spawning Grounds
• 1 Steely Resolve
• 1 Triumph of Ferocity
• 1 Where Ancients Tread

• Lands (40)
• 2 Plains
• 21 Forest
• 3 Mountain
• 1 Blossoming Sands
• 1 Boros Guildgate
• 1 Contested Cliffs
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Gruul Guildgate
• 1 Naya Panorama
• 1 Rugged Highlands
• 1 Rupture Spire
• 1 Selesnya Guildgate
• 1 Skarrg, the Rage Pits
• 1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Transguild Promenade
• 1 Wind-Scarred Crag

Buy This Deck

One could also go a different direction. By dialing down on the theme, the deck could gain great utility cards such as Weathered Wayfarer and spells like Wrath of God or Insurrection, all of which are excellent in Commander. Even more Overrun effects—like Overrun itself—would be good, though at that point, it almost just wants to be a token deck, and this deck as it is won’t deploy enough threats to reliably make Overrun worth it. It also would do well with some artifacts—frankly, Burnished Hart would be amazing in here, but even Darksteel Ingot would be good, and Adaptive Automaton is great in every tribal deck.

With this deck, we want to be in the red zone—keeping pressure up is important—but slow-rolling is probably the best way to be. Deploy a threat, and do some attacking. Maybe make a couple more threats and start poking people with some serious damage. But have a few extra cards in hand for when that Day of Judgment hits and we need to start over. Effectively, we want to force our opponents to play fair Magic—attack with creatures, and win on the battlefield. Keep hands with ramp spells, and when an insane play comes along, go for it. As soon as the mana is there, play that Titanic Ultimatum and swing for the fences. The worst thing that happens is someone has a random Fog effect and gets a sweet story about how he or she Fogged your Titanic Ultimatum. Best case is you got to cast Titanic Ultimatum and destroy an entire table with an absurd army of Beasts.

What did I miss? Does the deck suffer too much by being a slave to the tribe? Should I just suck it up and run Mirror Entity? Please let me know! Also, I’m looking for an idea for a Bant commander, so suggestions are welcome.

Some decks are really designed to tell a story more than anything else. This deck does exactly that—and the moral of the story is everyone is prey.

Total cost: $74.56