Mountain Landscape with River Valley and the Prophet Hosea by Gillis van Coninxloo (1585). Ondu Giant by Igor Kieryluk.

One of my favorite things in EDH is simplicity.

Don't get me wrong, I admire a deck that makes you really work in order to figure out just how to thread the needle in a complex boardstate so you can narrowly squeeze out a win. It's just that there's something wonderful about decks that you can shuffle up and play without having to do mental gymnastics every other turn.

Today's column is about one of those delightfully simple decks that should be a lot of fun to play. You'll ramp. You'll play big creatures. You'll ramp some more and if you're lucky you'll murder a tablemate or two and you might even get to meld your commander along the way.

Titania comes with a really, really cool party trick.

Whenever one or more lands are put into your graveyard from anywhere, you gain 2 life. That works well with fetch lands, but Titania also has an upkeep trigger. At the beginning of your upkeep, if there are four or more lands in your graveyard and you both own and control her and Argoth, Sanctum of Nature, exile them and meld them into Titania, Gaea Incarnate. Argoth, Sanctum of Nature has an activated ability that will make a 2/2 Green Bear creature token and then mill me for three cards.

The back sides of both Titania and Argoth have half of a card on them, and those two half cards get "melded" together to become a giant card on your battlefield. Befitting this giant card, Titania, Gaea Incarnate has a lot going on. She has four keywords: vigilance, reach, trample and haste. She can swing the turn that she melds, she can get damage past blockers, she'll still be available to block on your opponents' turns and she can deal with a threat in the air. Her power and toughness is equal to the number of lands you control and when she enters the battlefield you get to return all of the lands from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.

If that's not enough, Titania, Voice of Gaea will let you pay three and a green to put four +1/+1 counters on target land you control. The land becomes a 0/0 Elemental creature with haste that of course is still a land.

Finding Our Path

I was very close to building this deck as a "Lost in the Woods" deck. That enchantment would encourage me to run a crazy number of lands. Fifty would give me an even chance at dodging any given attacker and would be a deck I've never really built before. I could load up on Fogs, which I have always had a soft spot for, and have some casual fun.

Running 50 lands might make my fellow writers here at CSI proud - they often talk about how we should be running more lands and that 40 is a good starting point. I don't subscribe to the 40 land minimum mantra. I'll always prefer to be mana screwed than mana flooded, but today's list does weigh in at exactly 40 lands.

If I'm not keen on theming this deck around Lost in the Woods, the next logical direction to build in is to focus on land creatures. Titania can wake them up and if I were to build a list around cards with Awakening and other ways to bring them to life, I might have another really interesting deck on my hands.

Part of me likes this plan. It's unconventional and could get out of hand, but I don't love the idea of losing my lands to a Rout or Settle the Wreckage. Titania, Gaea Incarnate does give me an infinite mana outlet that could let me swing with my lands for the win. I'd find a way to make infinite mana and just keep putting +1/+1 counters on my lands until they're big enough to kill the table. Assuming I've got enough to get around blockers, I've got game.

I have been in games where I got my lands blown up, and even if the outcome was already very clear, I still found it really distasteful. That's a personal thing, to be sure, but I don't think I'm keen on intentionally putting my lands in harm's way, at least not in this first draft. That leaves me with one more direction that I find really tempting.

A commander that encourages land ramp and rewards me for playing as many lands as possible is the perfect place to gather together other similar creatures. Even with my sub-40 land counts, I often have a dozen or more lands on the field towards the end of a game. I'll be unlikely to present any truly scary threats in the early game. That's OK. In mid-powered, casual EDH games tend to go long enough that I should get ample opportunity to benefit from my high land count.

When other decks are trying to recover from a boardwipe and are drawing into mana dorks and small bodies, I'll have a reasonable chance at topdecking a creature that will scale up with my mana base.

Rounding Out The Theme

Having three creatures whose power and toughness scales with my land count wouldn't be enough to claim that this deck has a theme, so let's dig a little deeper. As it turns out, it's not that hard to find creatures who have this unique ability.

Budoka Gardener taps to let me play a land from my hand and if I have 10 or more lands, it flips to become Dokai, Weaver of Life. Dokai can create X/X Green Elemental creature tokens with that land-based power and toughness. Ulvenwald Hydra has reach and when it enters the battlefield I get to search up a land and put it onto the battlefield tapped. This deck has a lot of ways to tutor up nonbasic lands so that I can reliably get Argoth, Sanctum of Nature into play.

Greensleeves, Maro-Sorcerer has protection from planewalkers and Wizards, and will have me make a 3/3 Green Badger creature token when I get a landfall trigger. Landfall creatures are a subtheme in this list, as I should be seeing lots of lands come into play. Rampaging Baloths is in the list and will give me 4/4 green Beast creature tokens. Scute Swarm will make 1/1 green Insect tokens, or it will make additional Scute Swarms if I've got six or more lands.

Insects, Scute Swarms, Beasts, Badgers and creatures with a huge power and toughness are all well and good, but I also need ways to make them get damage through blockers.

One of my favorite decks in my collection is Multani. The fact this deck would let me play a Multani AND play a Maro-Sorcerer is a huge plus. Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer is about as straightforward as you can get. It's got trample. It's a big/big. Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar is a big/big with both reach and trample. I can return two lands I control to their owner's hand and return Multani from my graveyard to my hand. This deck only runs 20 creatures, so having that recursion could wind up being helpful.

Cultivator Colossus not only has trample, it will also give me a few more land drops. If I've got Abundance in play I can play out every land in my deck, but I'll have to have a land in hand when my Colossus hits the table. I've made the mistake of playing Colossus without a land in hand before and felt more than a little silly for my oversight.

Rounding Out The Deck

I noted that this list has a lot of ways to tutor up nonbasic lands. I wasn't kidding - over half of my land tutors can get a nonbasic and I've got a lot of land tutors. I can use these to get Argoth, Sanctum of Nature and some fetch lands to start setting up my graveyard so I can meld my commander. I can also get Castle Garenbrig to squeeze a little extra mana out for casting a big creature. I can find my Rogue's Passage so that one of my non-trampling big boys can get through blockers. If I've got a Scute Swarm or Rampaging Baloths on the field, a Myriad Landscape could set me up to get a couple of extra land drops.

This deck runs a few ways to pump up a creature based upon the number of lands I control.

Blackblade Reforged is a fantastic sword to put into any deck that wants to win with commander damage and it fits in really well here. Blanchwood Armor will only look at the number of Forests I control, but that should be a decent number by the mid to late game. If I've got my Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth on the field, everyone's lands will also be Forests. Because I'm running that land, I'm also running Dryad's Favor, which gives the enchanted creature Forestwalk.

All of these are strong cards because you should be able to benefit from them on multiple turns, but I also love playing combat tricks.

Strength of Cedars will let me pump a creature up at instant speed based upon the number of lands I control. This deck isn't full of instant spells but I am running the two Fog spells Constant Mists and Moment's Peace. I'm also running Arachnogenesis and Jaheira's Respite. The former will put X Spider creature tokens with reach onto the battlefield, where X is the number of creatures attacking me. They'll have 1 power and 2 toughness, but most importantly I can prevent all combat damage that would be dealt by non-Spider creatures that turn. Jaheira's Respite costs a whopping 5 mana but will put X basic land cards onto the battlefield where X is the number of creatures attacking me, in addition to preventing combat damage that turn.

I love fogs, so running a fog that also serves as a land tutor in a deck that really wants me to play out a lot of lands is going to feel awesome. I'm not nearly as keen on spiders, but I still like the versatility Arachnogenesis gives me against decks that go wide, and this deck should be able to play out enough lands to play more expensive spells like those two fogs.

A Walk In The Woods

I think this is going to be a fun and occasionally dangerous deck that could get out of hand if the game goes long enough. It won't compete well against high powered and turbo decks and its' power level caps out well before fringe cEDH. It wants a long game and it will pretty much always try to win through combat.

If you wanted to tune this list up towards higher powered play, you would likely be looking at aiming for infinite mana combos and using a melded Titania, Gaea Incarnate to kill the table with infinitely large land Elemental creatures. The issue with that plan is that you've got hoops to jump through, and when you start moving up into high powered and fringe cEDH play you are looking for efficient strategies. If a commander would give you hoops to jump through, you simply find one that doesn't, like Ezuri, Renegade Leader.

I'm not sure there's much point in tuning this list down, but you could make it easier on your budget. Dropping out the fetch lands and a few of the more expensive cards would help. This first draft does run Tooth and Nail and both Craterhoof Behemoth and Avenger of Zendikar, so you could drop out that powerful "I win" button along with the Abundance / Cultivator Colossus combo and play a slightly fairer game. Those combos are in the list for fun, but if combos aren't fun for you, by all means don't run them.

Titania, Voice of Gaea | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Titania, Voice of Gaea

• Creatures (20)
• 1 Allosaurus Rider
• 1 Ashaya, Soul of the Wild
• 1 Avenger of Zendikar
• 1 Beanstalk Giant
• 1 Beast Whisperer
• 1 Budoka Gardener
• 1 Craterhoof Behemoth
• 1 Cultivator Colossus
• 1 Elvish Reclaimer
• 1 Greensleeves, Maro-Sorcerer
• 1 Kura, the Boundless Sky
• 1 Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer
• 1 Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar
• 1 Rampaging Baloths
• 1 Realm Seekers
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Scute Swarm
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Spore Frog
• 1 Ulvenwald Hydra

• Enchantments (7)
• 1 Abundance
• 1 Bear Umbra
• 1 Blanchwood Armor
• 1 Dryad's Favor
• 1 Guardian Project
• 1 Lignify
• 1 Song of the Dryads

• Instants (10)
• 1 Arachnogenesis
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Constant Mists
• 1 Crop Rotation
• 1 Harrow
• 1 Jaheira's Respite
• 1 Moment's Peace
• 1 Return to Nature
• 1 Roiling Regrowth
• 1 Strength of Cedars

• Sorceries (17)
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Ezuri's Predation
• 1 Genesis Wave
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Nature's Lore
• 1 Nissa's Pilgrimage
• 1 Nylea's Intervention
• 1 Pir's Whim
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Reap and Sow
• 1 Reshape the Earth
• 1 Rishkar's Expertise
• 1 Scapeshift
• 1 Sylvan Scrying
• 1 Tempt with Discovery
• 1 Tooth and Nail
• 1 Traverse the Outlands

• Artifacts (5)
• 1 Blackblade Reforged
• 1 Caged Sun
• 1 Emerald Medallion
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 The Great Henge

• Lands (40)
• 26 Forest
• 1 Argoth, Sanctum of Nature
• 1 Blighted Woodland
• 1 Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1 Castle Garenbrig
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Mosswort Bridge
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Verdant Catacombs
• 1 Windswept Heath
• 1 Wooded Foothills
• 1 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth

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What I might love most about this build is that it gives me the mana to play spells that I often leave out of leaner, meaner decks. Ezuri's Predation is an 8 mana boardwipe that could leave me with a big army of 4/4 Green Pyrexian Beast creature tokens. Traverse the Outlands could essentially double my lands. Genesis Wave is a fantastic mana outlet that could put all manner of nonsense directly onto my battlefield. These high-cost spells are fun to play, but you need the mana to be able to cast them.

Building a deck around big splashy plays when you're not in blue is somewhat risky. A 1 mana Swan Song can stop a 25 mana Genesis Wave in its tracks, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to put it on the stack and see what happens. If you're in a meta that sees a lot of countermagic, you'll want to think about running cards like Veil of Summer and Conqueror's Flail to try to solve that problem. I didn't load this list up with anti-Blue spells, but you know your meta and if you need that extra insurance you adjust this list accordingly.

Final Thoughts

My original concept for Titania, Voice of Gaea, was to build it as "Gaea Tribal" with every green card that has Gaea in its name or text box. That might have been fun, but enough of those cards aren't very good, and the ones that are great are out of your average player's price range.

This is a deck that I hope to eventually try out in my weekly online games. If I opened one from a booster, I might even be tempted to take apart my Multani, Maro-Sorcerer deck to build this in paper. Meld is a neat mechanic and gives you something else to try to achieve and be happy about even if you don't end up winning the game. I still hear players get excited about finally melding Brisela, Voice of Nightmares and as of this writing, that meld card is six years old.

With Jumpstart 2022 seeing previews, I may soon pivot to writing about that set, but if there are any BRO cards you'd like to see me write about, please leave a comment when this list gets posted on Facebook on the CoolStuffInc.com FB page.

I had been thinking about writing up a list around Archelos, Lagoon Mystic, exploring whether Archelos can squeeze enough extra value out of Powerstones to make for a fun build. Archelos would make those Powerstones enter untapped, but so far I'm not seeing enough juice to make it worth the squeeze. I've always liked the art on Archelos, so he immediately sprang to mind when looking at all the new cards in The Brothers War that create tapped Powerstones.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!