Azusa is a big mana green deck. Her best suit is her guarantee of reliable, early-game acceleration. I feel the strongest part of the general card type is the reliable access to them; so, knowing that you'll have Azusa between turn 2-4 every game allows you to build a deck that seizes that very early game advantage to ramp so far ahead of the curve that the table has trouble keeping up.
Of course, all the usual problems with green decks are present here. Azusa has a hard time dealing with problem creatures, and board wipes do set her back some. Green has few ways to say "no" to the opponent. Luckily, she does recover well from Armageddon-type effects, provided your hand isn't running on empty. With the sheer amount of mana Azusa can generate, she does come with some built-in resiliency.
I've also taken advantage of my other favorite aspect of the 100-card highlander format, and that is building in a number of sub-themes, synergies, and combos.
Azusa is surprisingly effective against control decks, and can out-race many aggro matchups. Her biggest weakness, though, is alpha-strike beatdown generals like Kresh, the Bloodbraided and Uril, the Miststalker.
If you want to make plays like swinging with a hasted Emrakul, sacrificing him to Momentous Fall, then playing every one of the 15 cards you draw that turn, tutoring him up again, then playing him again to do it all next turn, well, keep reading. And if you're not a fan of Mr. Tentacles, you certainly don't need him to make this deck effective.
With that out of the way, here is my build, followed by a discussion of my card choices, deck philosophy, and a breakdown of the synergies and combos. I think it's possible to build a very budget, competitive Azusa list, but this is not it ... there are some pricy cards in here, but it's not that bad.
Obviously, the key is to drop Azusa as early as possible and ramp up to your power spells. You will want at least 3 lands in your opening hand, and more is gravy. Any hand with Exploration is golden as it allows a turn 2 Azusa, giving you between 5-8 forests on turn three. Turn two Gaea's Touch is okay too, as you can lay a third forest and then sac it for GG, giving you turn 3 Azusa as well.
The numerous land tutor spells also help the early ramp. It is never a bad thing in this deck to put more land in play, even though it might seem like you have more than enough. Remember that Concordant Crossroads and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn cost 16 ;). There are a lot of "forests matter" cards in this deck, so the more the merrier.
Once you've ramped up to an early 6-10 mana, you can start laying your big mana cards. I play all the mana doubling effects I could reasonably fit into the deck, those being Mana Reflection, Gauntlet of Power, Vernal Bloom, and Heartbeat of Spring. Your preference in playing them should be in that order, for obvious reasons. These allow you easy access to your win conditions, which will be discussed below. The mana doubling enchantments also start to make cards like Skyshroud Claim effectively free.
There are several pretty obvious win conditions. They all involve beating down with a lot of hasty, trampling nasty green creatures. Look for Akroma's Memorial or Concordant Crossroads first if you'd like to keep just what you're doing a surprise, but honestly, once you've got over 20 mana (which shouldn't take long) people are going to have a pretty good idea what comes next.
These cards, once handily supplied with haste, quickly end the game:
Your other option is the small land-animation theme. There is Rude Awakening and Kamahl, Fist of Krosa to pull this off. Animating all your lands with Rude Awakening, overrunning with Kamahl a few times, then untapping all your land with Candelabra of Tawnos before you swing with 20 7/7 trample vigilance flying first strikers is super effective.
Sadly, mono-green is pretty slight on disruption. I run Nevinyrral's Disk for those times that things just aren't working out. I should probably run Oblivion Stone as well but I prefer to try to win over top of other people's shenanigans, and it doesn't work very well with 15+ lands.
Acidic Slime, Woodfall Primus, and Krosan Grip all take care of problem non-creature permanents, but we all know green has a tough time with opposing creatures. Uril, the Miststalker will occasionally give you fits. There's not much to do about that except win faster, which is admittedly tough.
As I said, this deck has a pretty good matchup vs. control because it plays too many spells too soon for the control player to keep up. The deck is quite resilient to wraths, as it often lays its win condition in the same turn it wins thanks to Crossroads or Memorial. City of Solitude is extra tech versus control. If you have a good number of lands in the opening hand and one or two ramp spells (either Exploration or a Explosive Vegetation type) you will be a handful for control decks.
Cloudstone Curio + Aluren: This is a great little combo engine that hooks onto a few things. With Azusa and either Carven Caryatid or Wall of Blossoms, you can draw your entire deck and play every land in it (every time you replay Azusa you get a new "two extra lands"). What to do after that should be pretty obvious. It also hooks onto Eternal Witness to recur your entire graveyard, or Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary and one of the two haste providers to give you infinite mana.
Manabond + Memory Jar: Draw 7, play what you can, then dump all the lands into play with the Jar EOT trigger on the stack before you get your old hand back and avoid the "discard your hand" drawback on Manabond. This is fun to hook into the Eternal Witness / Aluren / Curio combo above to chain 10 Memory Jars in a row together and get all the land from them into play. Edit: Manabond removed due to ineffectiveness. Usually when Memory Jar'ing I can play 3-5 lands anyway.
Life from the Loam + Crucible of Worlds: Hook this into the Horn / Sundial combo above to fill your graveyard with lands, giving you more opportunity to maximize the number of land drops you make in a turn. Crucible also works nicely with Memory Jar. The fetches work nicely here, as does Strip Mine and Wasteland (soon to be added).
There are a few unorthodox card choices in here, I'll admit.
Storm Cauldron: Seems janky, but remember, you should be playing at least two more land per turn than everybody else. This will keep you off your really big mana stuff, but it will keep everybody else off of almost everything. Works very well with Mana Reflection to give a very lopsided "symmetrical" effect to the board.
Ursapine: On the surface he seems pretty meh. However, he essentially makes your team unblockable, because regardless of who they chump, somebody else gets +10/+10 at least. Makes your board very, very difficult to deal with in combat.
Jungle Basin: Another card that seems bad, but it produces 4 mana with Mana Reflection, and works really well with Cloudstone Curio and mana doubling effects or Horn of Greed. I admit, I hate to see it in my opening hand but later in the game it is surprisingly useful.
Mikokoro, Center of the Sea: Later in the game this can help chain your big turn into a win, especially with Cloudstone and/or Candelabra. Early game, it can buy you some political leverage, which sometimes you sorely need.
Heartbeat of Spring: Of all the mana doublers, this one is most questionable as it benefits everyone. That means, however, it's also the most likely to survive. Mana Reflection will be hated into oblivion if the board can manage it. Heartbeat will stick around a while, until everyone realizes what you can do with all your mana.
As this is my first primer, please give me some constructive feedback. Hope you enjoyed reading!
Cool take on Azusa, a great guide. It only pains me, that you left out a lot of greens quality fat. I know, your general requires to be build around it, but you should definitely consider at least Terastodon.
Terastodon has been in and out of the deck. I think it's a great card and does a lot of work for me in my Savra deck. Particularly, in duels an early 'don targetting 3 of their lands is almost game over. I think it's a little worse at the multiplayer table which is what I usually play.
I have kept the Legendary Eldrazi out of my deck simply because I don't have a good way to kill them when Blue takes them, but I do like It that Betrays and Artisan of Kozilek along with All is Dust. It that Betrays ends up grabbing so many cards from other people that it tends to be stronger than Kozilek in Multiplayer - for me. Artisan is also a big dumb dude, but the Regrowth effect is nice. The other advantage of these guys is that they don't shuffle your graveyard when they die like the legends do and since I run 6-7 Regrowth effects it makes more sense.
Also I highly recommend finding a place for City of Solitude. It screws blue decks almost as bad as Storm Cauldron (and the simple inclusion of that card means you don't mind nut punching your opponents). Another card that I have really been into is Orochi Hatchery since it usually ends up giving me 10-20 snakes every turn. It's no Gelatinous Genesis, but it's a good fit with Azusa. I assume Genesis Wave will make it's way in here since that card looks crazy in Azusa. Also, where is Greater Good? That has been the absolute best draw spell in the deck.
I like it and I know how much fun - and surprisingly competitive - this deck is!
Fetchlands need to be in this deck. They are just too good when comboed with Life from the Loam, Crucible, and getting double landfall triggers off of AoZ/Baru/Baloths/Cobra/Sundial.
wouldn't Burgeoning be better than Exploration for multiplayer?
It's a card I hadn't looked at. I'm not sure why. However in my build I don't see it as an "or" with exploration. Exploration accelerates my early game (and redundancy there is good) as well as allows me to chain land drops with Horn of Greed et al in the later game, which Burgeoning does not.
If my metagame was heavier blue City of Solitude would be in for sure. I don't have one but may find one and put it in anyway.
Orochi Hatchery and Greater Good are definitely interesting as well. Thanks for all the feedback!
When I have had Burgeoning out, I empty my hand of lands really fast. But that also happens with Azusa. I had it in there but dropped it for other stuff. The worst is 12 land that all tap for 3 and you have Cultivate in hand... And I run 47 land.
Lifegift - This was a hard decision, but ultimately didn't do enough to justify its presence. If I'm losing it doesn't change that, and if I'm winning, I don't need it. Manabond - Another tough cut, but didn't do enough to justify its enclusion. Will be replaced by Burgeoning if I get ahold of one.
City of Solitude - A little help against "NO" on my big turns. Generates some positive favor around the table. Overwhelming Stampede - Better than Overrun. Genesis Wave - Tryout basis. Seems like it could be silly. Duplicant - Need a way to kill critters.
Want list:
Wasteland - This is going in when I get a foil version for my other deck and can move it over. Windswept Heath - There are literally none of these in my area right now it seems. Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre - This deck could probably use a few more answers. Might as well play the big 3, right? Burgeoning - I want to try this out. Worldly Tutor - Gets Duplicant, EWit, Ulamog, Kamahl, etc.
any recent updates to this list, really thinking about making a boss azusa list but cant really mind much up to date talk about her, i know there has been quite a few nice additions in recent sets
I have kept the Legendary Eldrazi out of my deck simply because I don't have a good way to kill them when Blue takes them, but I do like It that Betrays and Artisan of Kozilek along with All is Dust. It that Betrays ends up grabbing so many cards from other people that it tends to be stronger than Kozilek in Multiplayer - for me. Artisan is also a big dumb dude, but the Regrowth effect is nice. The other advantage of these guys is that they don't shuffle your graveyard when they die like the legends do and since I run 6-7 Regrowth effects it makes more sense.
Also I highly recommend finding a place for City of Solitude. It screws blue decks almost as bad as Storm Cauldron (and the simple inclusion of that card means you don't mind nut punching your opponents). Another card that I have really been into is Orochi Hatchery since it usually ends up giving me 10-20 snakes every turn. It's no Gelatinous Genesis, but it's a good fit with Azusa. I assume Genesis Wave will make it's way in here since that card looks crazy in Azusa. Also, where is Greater Good? That has been the absolute best draw spell in the deck.
I like it and I know how much fun - and surprisingly competitive - this deck is!
any recent updates to this list, really thinking about making a boss azusa list but cant really mind much up to date talk about her, i know there has been quite a few nice additions in recent sets
Azusa is a big mana green deck. Her best suit is her guarantee of reliable, early-game acceleration. I feel the strongest part of the general card type is the reliable access to them; so, knowing that you'll have Azusa between turn 2-4 every game allows you to build a deck that seizes that very early game advantage to ramp so far ahead of the curve that the table has trouble keeping up.
Of course, all the usual problems with green decks are present here. Azusa has a hard time dealing with problem creatures, and board wipes do set her back some. Green has few ways to say "no" to the opponent. Luckily, she does recover well from Armageddon-type effects, provided your hand isn't running on empty. With the sheer amount of mana Azusa can generate, she does come with some built-in resiliency.
I've also taken advantage of my other favorite aspect of the 100-card highlander format, and that is building in a number of sub-themes, synergies, and combos.
Azusa is surprisingly effective against control decks, and can out-race many aggro matchups. Her biggest weakness, though, is alpha-strike beatdown generals like Kresh, the Bloodbraided and Uril, the Miststalker.
If you want to make plays like swinging with a hasted Emrakul, sacrificing him to Momentous Fall, then playing every one of the 15 cards you draw that turn, tutoring him up again, then playing him again to do it all next turn, well, keep reading. And if you're not a fan of Mr. Tentacles, you certainly don't need him to make this deck effective.
With that out of the way, here is my build, followed by a discussion of my card choices, deck philosophy, and a breakdown of the synergies and combos. I think it's possible to build a very budget, competitive Azusa list, but this is not it ... there are some pricy cards in here, but it's not that bad.
1 Azusa, Lost But Seeking
Land: 42
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Jungle Basin
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
1 Stripmine
1 Terrain Generator
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
32 Forest
Planeswalkers: 1
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
Artifacts: 12
1 Akroma's Memorial
1 Candelabra of Tawnos
1 Cloudstone Curio
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Gauntlet of Power
1 Horn of Greed
1 Memory Jar
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Planar Portal
1 Seer's Sundial
1 Storm Cauldron
1 Zuran Orb
1 Aluren
1 City of Solitude
1 Concordant Crossroads
1 Exploration
1 Gaea's Touch
1 Heartbeat of Spring
1 Mana Reflection
1 Vernal Bloom
Instants: 2
1 Krosan Grip
1 Momentous Fall
Sorceries: 14
1 Explosive Vegetation
1 Gaea's Bounty
1 Genesis Wave
1 Harmonize
1 Howl of the Night Pack
1 Journey of Discovery
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Life from the Loam
1 Overwhelming Stampede
1 Primal Command
1 Restock
1 Rude Awakening
1 Skyshroud Claim
1 Tooth and Nail
1 Acidic Slime
1 Ant Queen
1 Avenger of Zendikar
1 Carven Caryatid
1 Duplicant
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Eternal Witness
1 Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Krosan Tusker
1 Lotus Cobra
1 Omnath, Locus of Mana
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Rampaging Baloths
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 Ursapine
1 Wall of Blossoms
1 Wolfbriar Elemental
1 Woodfall Primus
1 Yavimaya Elder
Deck Philosophy
Obviously, the key is to drop Azusa as early as possible and ramp up to your power spells. You will want at least 3 lands in your opening hand, and more is gravy. Any hand with Exploration is golden as it allows a turn 2 Azusa, giving you between 5-8 forests on turn three. Turn two Gaea's Touch is okay too, as you can lay a third forest and then sac it for GG, giving you turn 3 Azusa as well.
The numerous land tutor spells also help the early ramp. It is never a bad thing in this deck to put more land in play, even though it might seem like you have more than enough. Remember that Concordant Crossroads and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn cost 16 ;). There are a lot of "forests matter" cards in this deck, so the more the merrier.
Once you've ramped up to an early 6-10 mana, you can start laying your big mana cards. I play all the mana doubling effects I could reasonably fit into the deck, those being Mana Reflection, Gauntlet of Power, Vernal Bloom, and Heartbeat of Spring. Your preference in playing them should be in that order, for obvious reasons. These allow you easy access to your win conditions, which will be discussed below. The mana doubling enchantments also start to make cards like Skyshroud Claim effectively free.
There are several pretty obvious win conditions. They all involve beating down with a lot of hasty, trampling nasty green creatures. Look for Akroma's Memorial or Concordant Crossroads first if you'd like to keep just what you're doing a surprise, but honestly, once you've got over 20 mana (which shouldn't take long) people are going to have a pretty good idea what comes next.
These cards, once handily supplied with haste, quickly end the game:
Naturally, Garruk's ultimate and Overwhelming Stampede make these even better.
Your other option is the small land-animation theme. There is Rude Awakening and Kamahl, Fist of Krosa to pull this off. Animating all your lands with Rude Awakening, overrunning with Kamahl a few times, then untapping all your land with Candelabra of Tawnos before you swing with 20 7/7 trample vigilance flying first strikers is super effective.
Much of the same applies to the token generating creatures like Ant Queen and Avenger of Zendikar.
Sadly, mono-green is pretty slight on disruption. I run Nevinyrral's Disk for those times that things just aren't working out. I should probably run Oblivion Stone as well but I prefer to try to win over top of other people's shenanigans, and it doesn't work very well with 15+ lands.
Acidic Slime, Woodfall Primus, and Krosan Grip all take care of problem non-creature permanents, but we all know green has a tough time with opposing creatures. Uril, the Miststalker will occasionally give you fits. There's not much to do about that except win faster, which is admittedly tough.
As I said, this deck has a pretty good matchup vs. control because it plays too many spells too soon for the control player to keep up. The deck is quite resilient to wraths, as it often lays its win condition in the same turn it wins thanks to Crossroads or Memorial. City of Solitude is extra tech versus control. If you have a good number of lands in the opening hand and one or two ramp spells (either Exploration or a Explosive Vegetation type) you will be a handful for control decks.
Cloudstone Curio + Aluren: This is a great little combo engine that hooks onto a few things. With Azusa and either Carven Caryatid or Wall of Blossoms, you can draw your entire deck and play every land in it (every time you replay Azusa you get a new "two extra lands"). What to do after that should be pretty obvious. It also hooks onto Eternal Witness to recur your entire graveyard, or Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary and one of the two haste providers to give you infinite mana.
Manabond + Memory Jar: Draw 7, play what you can, then dump all the lands into play with the Jar EOT trigger on the stack before you get your old hand back and avoid the "discard your hand" drawback on Manabond. This is fun to hook into the Eternal Witness / Aluren / Curio combo above to chain 10 Memory Jars in a row together and get all the land from them into play.Edit: Manabond removed due to ineffectiveness. Usually when Memory Jar'ing I can play 3-5 lands anyway.Candelabra of Tawnos + Mana Reflection et. al.: This should be pretty obvious. Sick amounts of mana.
Horn of Greed + Seer's Sundial: Play 3+ lands a turn, and replace them with one or two cards every time.
Life from the Loam + Crucible of Worlds: Hook this into the Horn / Sundial combo above to fill your graveyard with lands, giving you more opportunity to maximize the number of land drops you make in a turn. Crucible also works nicely with Memory Jar. The fetches work nicely here, as does Strip Mine and Wasteland (soon to be added).
There are a few unorthodox card choices in here, I'll admit.
Storm Cauldron: Seems janky, but remember, you should be playing at least two more land per turn than everybody else. This will keep you off your really big mana stuff, but it will keep everybody else off of almost everything. Works very well with Mana Reflection to give a very lopsided "symmetrical" effect to the board.
Ursapine: On the surface he seems pretty meh. However, he essentially makes your team unblockable, because regardless of who they chump, somebody else gets +10/+10 at least. Makes your board very, very difficult to deal with in combat.
Jungle Basin: Another card that seems bad, but it produces 4 mana with Mana Reflection, and works really well with Cloudstone Curio and mana doubling effects or Horn of Greed. I admit, I hate to see it in my opening hand but later in the game it is surprisingly useful.
Mikokoro, Center of the Sea: Later in the game this can help chain your big turn into a win, especially with Cloudstone and/or Candelabra. Early game, it can buy you some political leverage, which sometimes you sorely need.
Heartbeat of Spring: Of all the mana doublers, this one is most questionable as it benefits everyone. That means, however, it's also the most likely to survive. Mana Reflection will be hated into oblivion if the board can manage it. Heartbeat will stick around a while, until everyone realizes what you can do with all your mana.
As this is my first primer, please give me some constructive feedback. Hope you enjoyed reading!
EDH: U Arcum Dagsson (primer!) U
EDH: U Arcum Dagsson (primer!) U
Otherwise, very cool primer. Makes me want to finish that Azusa deck I started a while ago.
Terastodon has been in and out of the deck. I think it's a great card and does a lot of work for me in my Savra deck. Particularly, in duels an early 'don targetting 3 of their lands is almost game over. I think it's a little worse at the multiplayer table which is what I usually play.
Speaking of quality fat, I'm trying to find a spot for both primeval Titan and Liege of the Tangle.
EDH: U Arcum Dagsson (primer!) U
Also I highly recommend finding a place for City of Solitude. It screws blue decks almost as bad as Storm Cauldron (and the simple inclusion of that card means you don't mind nut punching your opponents). Another card that I have really been into is Orochi Hatchery since it usually ends up giving me 10-20 snakes every turn. It's no Gelatinous Genesis, but it's a good fit with Azusa. I assume Genesis Wave will make it's way in here since that card looks crazy in Azusa. Also, where is Greater Good? That has been the absolute best draw spell in the deck.
I like it and I know how much fun - and surprisingly competitive - this deck is!
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
I am petitioning to get players to stop complaining about mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause.
It's a card I hadn't looked at. I'm not sure why. However in my build I don't see it as an "or" with exploration. Exploration accelerates my early game (and redundancy there is good) as well as allows me to chain land drops with Horn of Greed et al in the later game, which Burgeoning does not.
If my metagame was heavier blue City of Solitude would be in for sure. I don't have one but may find one and put it in anyway.
Orochi Hatchery and Greater Good are definitely interesting as well. Thanks for all the feedback!
EDH: U Arcum Dagsson (primer!) U
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
Biggest change is I've decided to follow some advice given in this thread and play the fetches to combo with landfall and Crucible of Worlds.
Out:
Dryad Arbor - sucked harder than funniness compensated for.
Havenwood Battleground - just sucked.
Pendelhaven - Strictly worse than a forest in this deck.
Lifegift - This was a hard decision, but ultimately didn't do enough to justify its presence. If I'm losing it doesn't change that, and if I'm winning, I don't need it.
Manabond - Another tough cut, but didn't do enough to justify its enclusion. Will be replaced by Burgeoning if I get ahold of one.
Harrow - The worst land fetcher.
Realms Uncharted - The second worst land fetcher.
Overrun - Replaced by the strictly better Overwhelming Stampede.
Baru, Fist of Krosa - Didn't do much.
In:
Strip Mine - deals with problems, works with Crucible. 'Nuff said.
Misty Rainforest, Wooded Foothills, Verdant Catacombs - Crucible, landfall.
Terrain Generator - Tryout basis, seems strong.
City of Solitude - A little help against "NO" on my big turns. Generates some positive favor around the table.
Overwhelming Stampede - Better than Overrun.
Genesis Wave - Tryout basis. Seems like it could be silly.
Duplicant - Need a way to kill critters.
Want list:
Wasteland - This is going in when I get a foil version for my other deck and can move it over.
Windswept Heath - There are literally none of these in my area right now it seems.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre - This deck could probably use a few more answers. Might as well play the big 3, right?
Burgeoning - I want to try this out.
Worldly Tutor - Gets Duplicant, EWit, Ulamog, Kamahl, etc.
Considering:
I might remove the Aluren / Cloudstone Curio package. Aluren does nothing without Cloudstone, and still not much unless I also have one or two of Eternal Witness, Wall of Blossoms, Carven Caryatid, and A-Z USA. If I take it out, in would go some of these:
Realms Uncharted - Go back in and abuse the Crucible engine.
Rites of Flourishing - Replace the card-draw aspect of the engine. Give some later game gas.
Sundering Titan - Finisher, hoser.
Thoughts?
EDH: U Arcum Dagsson (primer!) U
Between High Market, Miren, the Moaning Well, and Greater Good, getting your fatties stolen should never be a problem.
R.I.P. Sundering Titan (6/20/12) and Braids, Cabal Minion (9/12/14)
Check out my list further down the page (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=442395). Not a whole lot of new cards, though Craterhoof Behemoth is a great companion for Avenger of Zendikar and Green Sun's Zenith is a stellar tutor for bombs.
@sH0opdAwoOp: By far the most popular theft card is Bribery, which those can't answer.