As I began this short series on cards which win the game, there is an inherent problem with them I didn't consider when I first started thinking about it.

1. They are mostly Enchantments
2. They often trigger on Upkeep

This is an issue because of timing, right? Enchantments have to be played on our Main Phase, then we have to go through a full turn cycle before we get to an Upkeep, and assuming we've met the criteria to win, it's a reasonable guess the table is going to do everything they can to stop you.

This leads to gameplay which works similarly with each deck: basically, it's "find Academy Rector. Shenanigans."

That's great, and there's nothing wrong with it, but it seems sort of silly to have a bunch of decks where they all do the same thing. So today, we're going to build one with a bit more resilience. We're going to set up our combo, and we're going to look at the table and say "you have one turn". We are going to challenge them to try to stop us. If they do, we'll set it up again. And we're going to do it with this little number:

In Shards of Alara block, way back when, there was a 5-power-matters theme in the Naya () shard. There were a lot of Creatures with power that high passed around in drafts, and a copy of Mayael's Aria was often worth playing if you had enough Woolly Thoctars and Bull Cerodons. It was normally just a way to make your big Creatures even bigger, but here, we're going exclusively for that last trigger - we're going to win the game. Here's how.

Marath, Will of the Wild | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Marath, Will of the Wild

• Creatures (17)
• 1 Ageless Entity
• 1 Bearer of the Heavens
• 1 Breaker of Armies
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Colossus of Akros
• 1 Drumhunter
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Ghalta and Mavren
• 1 Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant
• 1 Ghoultree
• 1 Gigantosaurus
• 1 Lost Auramancers
• 1 Moon-Blessed Cleric
• 1 Nessian Boar
• 1 Nova Chaser
• 1 Nykthos Paragon
• 1 Skyshroud Behemoth

• Instants (13)
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Blossoming Defense
• 1 Enlightened Tutor
• 1 Generous Gift
• 1 Hapatra's Mark
• 1 Momentous Fall
• 1 Naya Charm
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Return of the Wildspeaker
• 1 Royal Treatment
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Tyvar's Stand
• 1 Withstand Death

• Sorceries (20)
• 1 Austere Command
• 1 Bala Ged Recovery // Bala Ged Sanctuary
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Damning Verdict
• 1 Explosive Vegetation
• 1 Idyllic Tutor
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Life's Legacy
• 1 Migration Path
• 1 Nissa's Revelation
• 1 Peregrination
• 1 Plea for Guidance
• 1 Requisition Raid
• 1 Rishkar's Expertise
• 1 Season of Gathering
• 1 Sevinne's Reclamation
• 1 Slimefoot's Survey
• 1 Soul's Majesty
• 1 Stump Stomp
• 1 Vastwood Surge

• Enchantments (8)
• 1 Banishing Light
• 1 Cradle of Vitality
• 1 Light of Promise
• 1 Mayael's Aria
• 1 Oblivion Ring
• 1 Quarantine Field
• 1 Sterling Grove
• 1 Sunbond

• Artifacts (1)
• 1 Navigation Orb

• Lands (40)
• 12 Forest
• 6 Plains
• 3 Mountain
• 1 Canopy Vista
• 1 Cinder Glade
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Fabled Passage
• 1 Gavony Township
• 1 Jetmir's Garden
• 1 Jungle Shrine
• 1 Kessig Wolf Run
• 1 Mosswort Bridge
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Rootbound Crag
• 1 Shifting Woodland
• 1 Sunpetal Grove
• 1 Temple of Abandon
• 1 Temple of Plenty
• 1 Temple of Triumph
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse

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Marath is here for a couple of reasons. The first is because she's the only Elemental in our three colors, and we need an Elemental around. (More on that later.) She also does some solid work for us, because she is built with counters and we can move them around. With Mayael's Aria on the Battlefield, we can move counters to something at Instant speed to get its power up, or just create an Elemental token we can then use to trigger the Aria. The fact she can kill things isn't a bad deal either.

This deck wants to hit its Land drops, and it wants to keep hitting them and jump ahead fairly quickly. Our normal slate of 40 Lands is joined by several pieces of Land fetch; Cultivate and Navigation Orb, Migration Path and Slimefoot's Survey. There are more. We shouldn't have any problems dumping Lands on the 'field starting early in the game, and seeing Land fetch or Lands is never a bad thing. We may often have to cast Marath several times, and she can get expensive. Plus, some of our Creatures are pretty pricey, and we want to get our win-con out as quickly as we can; the more time people have to set up and build their own boards, the harder it'll be for us to survive the onslaught that will come our way when we deploy our end game.

Mostly our Lands help fix our colors, but we've got a few which do a bit more. Kessig Wolf Run can make extra mana mean a higher power, possibly winning the game for us. Rogue's Passage is a nod to the fact we might just want to attack with some of our big guys, and Reliquary Tower is there for when we hit one of our draw spells and don't want to discard.

Speaking of draw spells, we've got a few. Drumhunter is one of my favorites in a deck like this, the extra mana being surprisingly useful but the card draw being the better part. Mostly, though, we're going to run Soul's Majesty or a version of it - something which draws according to Power. The new one is Season of Gathering, but they all do basically the same thing - look at a Creature's Power and give us cards equal to that amount. Most of the time, if we fire off one of these, we're a turn or two away from attempting the win.

However, we are going to have to survive that turn. We do that with removal and protection. We have some cheap removal spells in addition to Marath's damage ability, so hopefully we can avoid death-by-big-Creature. Additionally, we have a few spells which give a Creature either Hexproof or Indestructibility, because the most likely way someone will try to stop us is by killing our Creature. A few Enchantments like Oblivion Ring help us deal with problem permanents. I also like Damning Verdict here, since it's quite likely we can negotiate a turn where all our Creatures survive and none of theirs do.

So, here's how this works. We have a few ways like Idyllic Tutor and Plea for Guidance to look for Mayael's Aria. We also have a number of cheap Creatures which have Power 10. (This is why Marath being an Elemental matters - Nova Chaser requires us to Champion an Elemental. Keep in mind, we can also do this with a Token she makes.) These Creatures aren't meant to do anything other than be big, so we can take downsides like on Nessian Boar.

We get a big Creature out and we play out Mayael's Aria. Now the real tech: we're going to use a spell like Sunbond or Cradle of Vitality to gain counters equal to life we gain. We'll move to our Upkeep and walk through the steps on the Aria - we'll put counters on everything, then we'll gain 10 life. That will make our Creature 20 Power plus (most likely 21, since we'll have an extra counter from the first step of the Aria) and we'll win the game, right there. Done.

It's worth noting Ageless Entity is an outlier here. This Creature isn't 10 Power, but it works kind of like a timebomb with the Aria out, slowly building itself while inching toward winning the game. It also works well with Marath, because we can move some counters over and make it bigger faster, accelerating the clock.

Bearer of the Heavens is also an interesting one. I like the idea of our opponents having to decide between blowing up the board completely and stopping us from winning. More often than not, I suspect it'll just lead to a group of people scooping and moving on, but if it's not your style, feel free to remove it. There are other big Creatures you could run.

Finally, we have a couple ways to get things back, like Eternal Witness and Sevinne's Reclamation. These are ways to get back the Aria, should it be destroyed. If it gets Exiled, well, that's that. Hopefully some of those big Creatures can get in there and do some damage, because we can't win with the Aria if it gets Exiled.

I like the idea of a deck like this - one that challenges the table to solve a problem before it just wins. I hope you do too.

Thanks for reading.