Welcome to mono green commander. If you are here then I hope you want to beat some face and screw with some control players. Thrun is one of the absolute most difficult commanders for control to interact with. Playing mono color can be very satisfying as it has a smaller card pool to put into consideration and thus tends to use less staple cards in its creation. This thread is devoted to a very resilient aggressive voltron build with elements of control and disruption splashed in. If what you were looking for was the counterspell heavy, wrathing, combo based decks; I am afraid you hit up the wrong page. Everyone has different reasons as to why they will play a commander but I will take some time to explain somewhat why I made my own choice of Thrun as a commander.
Why you might like Thrun:
Thrun's mana cost is very affordable. This means he can come in sooner and will be easier to recast when needed.
Thrun is probably the most resilient commander against disruption.
The deck has a very unique style play being creature and ramp light in mono green.
Much less threatening looking than Uril and Sigarda.
You love utility lands! Being that we are mono colored it is a lot easier to pack more great utility lands as hitting our colors is much easier.
Why you might not like Thrun:
Mono color means that you will be running some.... interesting card choices at times.
Thrun needs buffs to get much accomplished.
You don't like turning sideways as your win condition.
You like slow playing into games.
You are looking to play against lots of tier 1 decks.
Sigarda, Host of Herons she has built in evasion and has a good power / mana ratio. She is strong and picks up white but is more susceptible to being countered. The additional color is nice though and having the built in evasion means you dont need to rely as much on trample. Land destruction options are available as well if you are looking for it but white doesn't have a ton of options in this means.
Uril, the Miststalker lots of colors and solid ones for what you want to be doing. His biggest issue is his perceived threat as most people will blow him up and tuck him as much as they can. Most of what this deck usually does is protect him coming in, buff him, and blow up the lands. This is a bit different in what it usually attempts to do as well as being much lighter on the control elements. He buffs up much faster due to his self buffing and his increased colors though which is nice.
Silvos, Rogue Elemental silvos packs a lot more power and built in trample. He costs a bit more but he also punches through aggro decks a lot more successfully. The big trade off is that he is nowhere near is good vs control decks however some of that built in power does offset and allow you to ignore some of the trample and pump effects that I currently run.
Multani, Maro-Sorcerer this guy can pack a lot of punch but due to his shroud rather than hexproof you generally need to use some global trample enablers. Generally speaking the amount of assistance he needs is low though so it opens your deck up to running more on its own for the other 99. He is better the more your opponents draw cards and a lot worse with the more your opponents tend to burn their hands out. Unfortunately this leads him to tend to have more power in the early game and get smaller over time. You could potentially run him as a pseudo draw / pillow-fort style of deck to try to keep hands high. I have issues with how much control my opponents have over his size though and how difficult it is for you to do anything to make him better.
Omnath, Locus of Mana this guy tends to explode out in the early game size wise. He also lacks any sort of evasion or protections which generally tends to make him not see play as a voltron commander so much as a big mana stone that can swing into an open board. He has problems trying to go voltron due to his lack of protections but he hits play very quickly and gets up to size very very quickly without any help. He is easily chump blocked though and very prone to control if used as a voltron commander.
In the end, I really enjoyed the built in defensive capabilities that Thrun brings to the table. He is incredibly resilient against control decks and can be incredibly difficult to interact with as far as opponents are concerned. With the change to the legend rule, Thrun's built in protection from counterspells gets even more powerful as it shifts things like Spell Crumple and Hinder to become larger problems for other hexproof commanders. Thrun isn't picked as a commander for his built in offensive capabilities after all. Thrun's own power comes from his difficulty to be disrupted. This means that sorcery speed buff effects and even instant speed buff effects targeting him are very difficult to interact with beyond counterspells. Regeneration is surprisingly useful as well when you look at how many sweepers available do allow for regeneration such as Austere Command, Oblivion Stone, Akroma's Vengeance, and Nevinyrral's Disk. With the move away from clones killing legends, some buff options such as totem armors: Boar Umbra, Snake Umbra, and Spider Umbra can fight off some of the wraths that don't allow regeneration. When it really comes down to it, Hallowed Burial and Terminus are some of the few weaknesses Thrun really even does have. Even with these, we could use sacrifice outlets or creature tutors to recover from them.
I personally also find mono colored decks to be very flavorful in the fact that they are generally not good-stuff decks. Thrun has some very unique attributes to him which also allows for some very unique situations / card setups. Where Sigarda might have built in flying, Thrun can take advantage of things that force blockers that she cannot such as Lure, Provoke, Tower Above where the fact that he does not fly is a good thing as you can better control the board with. Unlike Uril, Thrun has no reason to funnel his buffs into one card type so his buffs cover a lot of different avenues including instant, sorcery, and equipment buffs as well. Thrun also has some very interesting buffs available to him that the other two might not find as useful such as Riding the Dilu Horse where Sigarda already flies and Uril needs enchantments primarily. Berserk is also a very unique tool in the fact that Thrun can regenerate through using it where most other commanders will die after using it.
In the end, you have to make the decision for yourself if you think Thrun is right for you. If you want a flavorful and resilient commander though, I think he is a very good choice to consider.
I spent a lot of time trying to come up with a green deck that I liked playing. I have built a handful of mono green commanders such as Ezuri, Kamahl, Omnath, and Seton. In the end though, most mono green commanders just ended up being very linear and very light on their control elements. I got bored of the overrun style of green stompy deck. Thrun has been a lot more unique to me being that he doesn't come from overrun tactics.
When I first get into Thrun, I decided to go with a very creature light control heavy list. This was a ton of fun and I will admit to having had less buffs in it then than I do now. After a while of playing this I realized that I didn't really run a very high mana curve to the deck. I ended up dropping my mana costs further and using some mana disruption to try to punish the decks that were ramping hard and using big mana to their advantage. This was amusing to me but the problem was that it turned into a 3v1 against my mana deprival too quickly. In the end I just couldn't consistently get these effects online correctly.
More recently I cut back on my disruption just keeping a few effects in for occasional use. Generally speaking I focus more on bringing Thrun up to size so he can get some damage in. Still I try to keep some disruption and control elements to the list. My overall goal though is to execute my opponents though so sometimes the best answer is to just crush someone who is annoying me.
My name is Brian, I am 26 years old, I am a spike player who loves to win and tweak his lists. I live out in South Dakota sort of in the middle of nowhere. I got into playing EDH back in the summer of 2010. Our playgroup started sort of small and we went on and off on EDH play but eventually it took off and most of us sort of started dying off from other formats and only playing EDH. We would get Tuesday Nights where we would get 8-12 guys together down at the shop and just play 4+ hours of EDH every week. I got to be sort of one of the big shot players in my group where a lot of times people would just swing things at me because that's the player I am regardless of what deck I bring to the table. I try to build decks with the mentality that everyone might be attacking me and I might have to fend off more than one opponent. While I love perfecting my decks, I don't particularly like utilizing combos so if I have a combo in my deck it is usually because it has multi purposes that can be utilized to go infinite if it is drawn in that way. I am a spike player and I love getting my cards worth so I play plenty of card advantage style cards and I love comes into play effects.
I moved from my original EDH playgroup to a college town in May 2012. My competition when I moved to this new meta was totally terrible when I got here. Due to this I was playing things like a $1,300.00 Jenara deck against $50-$100 decks. Sadly, I had to push the guys in my meta to proxy decks up so that I could have some competition. Currently they have gone a long ways and give me a much better run for my money.
I have played magic since hummm I guess like 1996 or 1997. I have been playing magic since Ice Age but that was when I was in like 4th grade so obviously I was not the player then that I am now. I picked up on playing standard FNM a lot in high school where I played a lot in the Odyssey / Onslaught blocks. I played into Mirrodin then quit when Kokusho started beating everyone up. I don't hold it against him though, I would love to see him come off of the ban list as I think he is fine in EDH. Perhaps keep him banned as a commander.
I am back to playing magic again and have been playing standard since Zendikar came out. I go back and forth on my thoughts of Standard but regardless I love playing EDH. I recently stopped playing standard again sometime just before Avacyn Restored was released due to my own personal issues with the direction Wizards is trying to push standard away from control. I still dabble at standard a little bit utilizing my friend John's collection, who has been very gracious and allows me to use his cards, but I really have a strong dislike for the current direction Wizards is going with standard. Still, I stay strong as a Commander player.
I have built more EDH decks than I can count up anymore. I am quite good at dropping staple cards into a list which is really unfortunate. I keep the number of decks I have constructed to somewhat of a minimum. I don't like replicating how decks feel so I sort of go with colors / strategies I don't already have. I am sort of an aggro / control player who tends to for the most part not focus heavily on infinite combos. I usually tend to be playing 3-4 decks at a time so if I have more decks than that it tends to be because they have earned their keep and stick around due to that but don't get played.
Deckstats for this list can be found here (Last updated 2/11/2014).
Building on a Budget
Somehow or another my own decklist ends up being somewhere close to $1,000.00 due to probably like 4 cards in particular. When I started building this deck it was actually a fairly budget list being that it is mono color. With making a few trims of things I later added to the deck you can easily cut over half of the cost off of the deck.
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale I use this as primarily token and ETB utility creature disruption. Used in conjunction with things like Winter Orb it effectively kills creatures as well. However its really not a key part of the deck. Its a great control outlet for a deck like this to pick up as dealing with tokens can be tricky outside of fog effects. All this being said, the deck very easily functions without this card. It costs like $400.00 for a cheap one last I checked so I wouldn't really expect many to go out and buy one. I happened to obtain one when selling off my standard collection halfway through Innistrad block (at which time this card was like $100.00 cheaper). Its totally understandable and expected that this is one of the biggest budget cuts for most. I don't think the value you will see from this will be anything significant but I do very much enjoy it in my list especially with my few means of tutoring for it and playing it. Replacing it with just a basic land or another utility land is totally acceptable.
Riding the Dilu Horse this is the second most expensive card in the list as it stands. Its probably one of my favorite pieces of tech for Thrun to use though as its a continuous buff that does not end at end of turn. However it will put you back probably $70.00 and the reason its only that much is probably because it doesn't see much play anywhere. I actually consider the $70.00 price tag to be very low in comparison to the value it gives the deck but even then, this is not a necessary add for the deck. Its a fun card but seeing how we cant really tutor for it or anything there are much better places to start when spending money building the deck. This is one crazy good piece of evasion though and the fact that its a buff + essentially unblockable for 3 mana that continues and doesn't leave a target for removal is huge. I compare it to like the best aura ever made for Thrun.
Berserk this will also put you out almost $50.00 for a cheap copy. Its a very nice effect but when building on a budget, Overwhelming Stampede does the same effect for a little more mana. Since you wont have to regenerate Thrun afterwards it only costs 2 more but if its the last opponent you are going to try to kill or something then it cost significantly less mana. I like what this card does but considering its a short one time buff, its something you could definitely live without.
Mana Crypt I picked up a copy for $50.00 but it seems like it tends to run a little higher than that now. In multiplayer, starting a turn or two faster is impressive but not nearly as much as it is in heads up. If you intend to play in multiplayer then you could easily sub this out for a different piece of ramp if you want without seeing all that much of a decrease in power. Its a nice piece of ramp but when building the deck up its easily a card you can wait on until later. Really any other Rampant Growth effect will still speed you up and cost you a lot less money.
At this point, the decklist that is remaining should be somewhere around probably $350.00 - $400.00 to obtain the rest of the deck. I won't stop here though if you are looking for a smaller investment than this I have more suggestions. Some of my suggestions for alternatives will be sort of theoretical but should help as potential alternatives. Feel free of course to run whatever you feel fits your own needs though.
Karn Liberated generally speaking this is just a answer to anything. I really like him though because he exile removes them which occasionally really needs to happen. Sometimes, simply killing something isn't enough so this saves me time in the two step process of removing things from graveyards as well. However, more recent his price tag went up to around $30.00 due to modern tron decks. You can look at running something like Spine of Ish Sah as a replacement for him and a much more budget friendly card. Desert Twister can also work in this slot but I like the fact that Spine of Ish Sah has some built in recovery.
Chord of Calling this deck mostly uses creature tutors to recover Thrun in the case of a tuck so going more budget friendly on a tutor is a very easy fix. Due to a recent modern pod deck, this card shot up in price to around $30.00 recently. If budget is an issue I would suggest going with Brutalizer Exarch or Primal Command as more budget friendly options. Tutors are mostly used in an emergency to recover Thrun so going more budget friendly shouldn't be much of an issue.
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary I use him as mana ramp as he can give me a turn 3 Thrun and really powers out a lot of the bigger late game auras and lets me drop and equip equipment very quickly. I like him a lot but he isn't a necessity that cannot be replaced by a Rampant Growth effect for budget purposes. Cutting him will hurt Worldly Tutor a little though as well as its how I often ramp into a hand when I open with Worldly.
Snow-Covered Forest snow lands often cost $0.50 - $1.00 each. Luckily forests tend to be one of the cheaper snow lands. I primarily use these to allow me to use Mouth of Ronom in my deck so cutting that small piece of utility can save probably close to $10.00. I only run a half split of snow lands to ensure I hit some snow lands but if you still wanted to use this land, you could probably go as few as 5/6 snow lands in a list and still usually not have an issue with it especially if running some Rampant Growth effects.
Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers / Tower of the Magistrate / High Market These are some utility lands that while useful, I consider less useful than other things in the list. You can start saving yourself money when building on a budget by cutting all of the utility lands but these in particular I find to be more of a finishing touch adds than the other utility lands that I run in the list.
At this point, if you cut all of the above (I apologize as I am just throwing estimated guesses) but you should have the list down to probably the $250.00 -$300.00 range. You can obviously cut further from here as well. Thrun is really at his core just lands, ramp, and pump so you can build a Thrun list up from most any sort of collection. The fact that he is mono color means that you don't have to start out by dropping tons of money on the landbase which is a huge plus.
This deck is first and foremost what they would consider a Voltron deck. Voltron is literally an old 80s animated show but more importantly to take away from it, the meaning behind the term comes from the fact that the individual pilots would assemble into one super big robot named Voltron. People refer to strategies that usually involve a creature + several buffs as a voltron style of deck. This deck in particular is no different and its goal is to get Thrun into play and give him some big buffs and smash face. There really is no elegant way to spin that. Its first goal is to drop him in and make him big. Thrun's design really doesn't give him much for different directions on how to play him. If you wanted to focus less on making him huge you could focus more on elements of resource (land and mana stone) control but I could not make my own testing in that direction to yield as good of results as going more for power buffing him.
The second goal of this deck was to attempt to be robust vs control. In the case of Thrun we are sacrificing size and evasion for hexproof, uncounterable, and a built in regenerate. These are several tools that we use in order to continue our own strategy which is to kill everyone with Thrun. If you feel that you do not need hexproof, uncounterable, or regenerate then you might consider an alternative commander and build. Most of the defensive measures that are used to keep us going Thrun brings to the table in his own built in abilities. This allows us to focus more on being offensive with our other effects rather than keeping him alive as his own abilities keep him going through a lot of things as is.
Finally this list attempts to bring some control to green. Green has never been overly popular for its ability to control the game however using artifacts and some more recent cards it is able to spin off a lot better control than in the past. Don't get your hopes up as it has a lot more focus on being a stompy deck than being a control deck. The style of control is different here than in a blue, white, and or black deck but there are still some very useful tools to keep yourself in the game and surprise opponents. We have options here to control resources such as lands and mana stones if you want or control combat through fogs if wanted.
Open Hands: generally speaking what I look for in an opening hand is 1) land to get me going 2) ramp to try to get a faster Thrun 3) ways to make thrun bigger soon after dropping him 4) card draw to get me going towards my midgame.
I usually try to mulligan out any sort of expensive buffs (Mythic Proportions and Eldrazi Conscription) out of hand. Most of the situational and or control cards tend to make their way out of my opening hand to try to go faster in the early game. Keep removal as you feel like you will be able to use shortly into the game but generally try to move the control out for means to get Thrun going in the early game if you can.
Early Game: Do everything you can to get Thrun into play as soon as you can. Try to drop equipment into play on your way up to dropping Thrun but the ramp game takes priority in the early game until you can drop Thrun.
Once Thrun is in play try to get him suited up quickly before people can get answers online. As much as possible keep regenerate mana up as people like to pop him off when they can but there are also a lot of really nice effects out there that allow regeneration such as Austere Command and Oblivion Stone.
Mid Game: You should have a few buffs out by now. Watch out for over extending your buffs on Thrun. Some of the worst effects for this type of deck are just clear non-land permanents out. Loosing all of his buffs with no cards in hand is one of the less fortunate things Thrun can encounter. There is such a thing as overextending your buffs due to this. Remember that there are multiple opponents so you still need to kill the remaining players even if dropping a buff means getting a kill, it can sometimes leaves you awkwardly overextended.
Late Game: If the games made it to the Late game either A) you played a bit safely and conservatively to try not to get blown out or B) your opponents have recovered or possibly are screwing you over. Thrun will goldfish some games from really nice and fast starts but in general it isn't the norm. Thrun isn't the fastest voltron out there so much as the most resilient one. Due to this it is expected that you will get drug into the later game if you don't just straight out roll everyone. Try to take things at a pace that will have you still in the game in the late game. Good early game threat assessment should hopefully leave you with opponents that are manageable at this phase of the game.
It might seem odd for me to talk about threat assessment in a primer but I feel that its a large question of how the deck will perform. Knowing your opponents and their decks will pay off in gold when it comes to threat assessment so I for one believe that you are at a disadvantage if you are using this deck in an unknown meta. You will be sort of obvious in your tactics in an unknown meta but your opponents tactics will be harder to gauge potentially just off of the first few turns. If you know the capabilities of your opponents decks your goal is to eliminate the person with the best chance to beat you in the drawn out game first. You want the last person standing to be the person you feel is the easiest to defeat in a drawn out late game. The people that potentially have tons of wraths and draw or combo off win conditions should be the first ones killed. These people unfortunately don't always go down easily just because you want them to first however the longer you put it off the harder you will have getting rid of them.
The best thing you can do is figure out the order that your opponents need to die and try to commit to this by the time you are swinging with Thrun. You can change your mind but its best to have this sort of plan of the order that your opponents should die in planned out by the first time you are swinging with Thrun. Switching targets halfway through killing someone is a good way to end up with two people half dead when someone wraths your board position out from under you.
Do not, attempt to be political and spread out your damage, or decide who dies first randomly. Unfortunately one of the strongest things you have going for you with Thrun as your commander is your explosive opening. If you waste this time in the game then your chances of winning will be diminished greatly. You need to be explosive and productive in your early turns. If this is not how you want to play then I would say you should probably not play an aggro deck.
Fogs:Fog effects can be very useful against opposing aggro decks. The big thing to understand though is that these effects are often dead cards in hand until the game builds up to the point where they help you stall it. They are also not useful against all styles of opposing decks as combo and stax style of decks will be a very bad opponent to be packing fogs against. They are however a very effective type of card against aggro and voltron decks. Moment's Peace, Tangle, Constant Mists, and Spike Weaver are generally speaking the effects in this category that I suggest looking at for this type of package. More detailed explanations can be found on them in my Card Options section.
Lures:Lure effects are a means of combat control that green is fairly good at. This type of effect can work well with abilities such as trample and are primarily effective on creatures without evasion such as Thrun. If you want to focus more on creature control in a Thrun deck then Lure effects can be effective fore ridding yourself of annoying utility creatures, commanders, and tokens.
Combat Tricks: there are a lot of cool little combat tricks you can use such as giving deathtouch, tapping, untapping, and forcing blockers that green has access to. Provoke, Lace with Moonglove, Spidery Grasp, and Irresistible Prey are among some of the better combat tricks that you can consider. Some of these can be as good as creature removal when used correctly. They might require more playing around with than Swords to Plowshares but they can also be surprisingly effective when timed correctly.
Resource Disruption: when most people think of resource especially land disruption they think of Armageddon and Obliterate type of effects. Green has access to several artifact as well as green disruption effects too such as Winter Orb, Static Orb, Storm Cauldron, Hall of Gemstone, and Ritual of Subdual. I run a number of these effects myself as I can potentially buy myself time where my opponents have a harder time developing their boards, drawing cards, and trying to disrupt my own position while these effects are in effect.
Power Buffs: equipment, auras, and everything else that makes Thrun big is important to consider. If he had a naturally larger size you might not need to consider making him bigger but as he stands, a 4/4 with no evasion has a hard time killing anyone. Its possible to look less at buffing him and more at disruption and control but in my experience results tend to vary a lot more on the disruption side of things for mono green. You might notice that some of the more powerful power buffs either don't add evasion as well or cost a lot of mana to drop. I have a large mix of buffs in the list due to what available buffs there are as well as you don't always need evasion on every buff because in general you only need one form of evasion on him at a time.
Evasion: thrun has no natural evasion so I find that being able to give him some form of evasion (flying, trample, unblockable, etc) helps for him to connect to players. Trample is the most common form of evasion that green has access to and it helps overcome smaller blockers. Combining Deathtouch + Trample turns most everything but tokens into very very small road bumps as you only need to assign a single point of damage with deathtouch before you start to trample. Unblockable / horsemanship / shadow are probably the best forms of evasion but they aren't on many green buffs and most of the buffs that you can find with them don't really provide any sort of power buff. If you can come across a form of evasion that allows for no blocks + power buffing then you have found the perfect evasion buff for thrun.
The Ramp Game: Looking at my list, you will realize that the ramp that I use in this deck is designed around casting Thrun sooner in the game. For example, I could play something like Kodama's Reach or Wood Elves which you might see in other lists, however due to the fact that they do not ramp into a faster Thrun I have decided against using them. There is a point of too much ramp however which I will mention because of the fact that Thrun has somewhat of a small natural body on him. If instead he had a body more like Silvos, Rogue Elemental where we might not need additional equipment to make him deadly we could run a much heavier ramp package focusing on pushing him into play faster. If you play primarily 1v1 games I think the amount of ramp you use actually becomes more important. In multiplayer games though having a turn 2 Thrun vs a turn 3/4 Thrun isn't necessarily as game breaking because you have three people to kill with him meaning by the time you get to the third person it is probably turn 8+ anyways in a good situation.
Overall I will just say that due to the design of Thrun, using small ramp that will speed him up and the plays immediately after a little is effective but I wouldn't overly focus on these because in multiplayer it will take you some time to kill everyone anyways and you can overkill the ramp package due to the fact that a vanilla Thrun is not that threatening looking on his own.
Draw: draw can keep us in the game. In 1v1 games I think it is a little less important as you can potentially come out swinging and kill your opponent right away but in multiplayer the chance of making it through all three opponents before they get established and or answer you once or twice is rare. Drawing more cards means that when you get answered you wont slow to a craw with nothing left in hand.
Graveyard Recovery: green has a lot of regrowth type effects. One big thing to realize about these effects is that they are dead until you have targets to cast them on. This means the more auras / equipment you use the less chance of being able to pick things back up before someone comes through and blows your board up. The more instants / sorcery buffs and answers you run the sooner you might be able to use them. Also, they are prone to graveyard hate impacting their effective use as well.
Larger Games - Being that we are sort of a fast aggro deck, having too many opponents is a bad thing for us. Generally speaking I don't like using this deck in a game bigger than 4 players. We are already not excessively fast but if you add more opponents it will take that much longer to get to other players and the chances of getting answered increase. This type of deck is best utilized in 2-4 player games or potentially in team based games like Emperor. If your meta likes playing 5 and 6+ player FFA games, using a commander like Thrun is a bad idea.
Clones - up until recently clones have been literally one of the biggest killers of hexproof commanders. Being that Thrun is so robust it was one of my worst enemies as I could do little to nothing against them. Recently though wizards announced a change to the rules of the game for legends to essentially keep opponents from killing legends with clones. This is a HUGE buff to hexproof commanders especially Thrun considering he is the most resilient of the hexproof commanders. There were essentially little to no defenses against clones that were reasonable to run so the change in this is a huge buff to this strategy.
Hallowed Burial / Terminus considering the decklist is a creature light deck, tuck based wrath effects are very very bad for Thrun to run into. Essentially because these two cards exist, I run creature tutors in my decklist. If these two cards weren't running around I probably wouldn't even bother with creature tutors. Warp World could technically be also considered in this category too of cards that give us issues but its much later into the game generally speaking. To defend yourself from these type of effects you can consider in no particular order 1) Creature Tutors 2) Sacrifice Outlets to sacrifice Thrun to in response 3) ways in which to flicker Thrun out such as Cold Storage, Tawnos's Coffin, and Voyager Staff.
Sacrifice Effects - Some of the worst effects you can encounter is repeat sacrifice effects such as Sheoldred, Whispering One, Butcher of Malakir, Grave Pact, Thraximundar, and Savra, Queen of the Golgari. Generally I don't worry about them too much until you start having a continuous issue with them. Keep in mind you might be able to just stomp this player out before they get established if they are a recurring issue. Token spawning strategies work fairly well at combating these effects. You might also be able to use Tajuru Preserver to good value against these tactics but he is a fairly fragile creature unfortunately. I would say that splashing a token theme is probably the stronger defense against these tactics or simply removing them from the game first.
Noncreature Sweepers - these are like Oblivion Stone, Austere Command, and Pernicious Deed. The biggest issue with these is that they usually turn Thrun back into a 4/4 without evasion. They generally speaking kill card advantage against us more so than actually killing him. It can be very very crippling to try to come back against these effects if your card draw isnt working out for you. Playing cautiously and not trying to rush to kill everyone can keep you from over extending. Knowing your meta can help here as well and or if your meta doesn't run heavy on these helps too. You can also consider moving more towards +/+ token buffs for Thrun to evade some of these. Regrowth effects can also be a nice way to come back from these but just in general try not to overextend and try to push for larger solid buffs rather than relying on stacking a bunch of them on at once. If you see a lot of these effects try to stick to just 1-2 buffs for thrun at a time and try to push for a higher power level on average of your buffs. Smaller buffs will just result in larger card advantage casualties here.
No Regen Wraths - These will put you back to the command zone. It will also knock off the auras. The more wraths you see in your meta the less you will want to run auras and the more you will want to run equipment. Be careful not to over extend yourself on your buffs and try to play it safe with a good amount of card draw in these situations. Indestructible equipment such as Darksteel Plate and Shield of Kaldra and totem armors such as Boar Umbra, Snake Umbra, and Spider Umbra also wok well at defending from these type of strategies.
Tokens and ETB Utility - more than anything token swarms and just uitlity guys will get in the way of your damage output. They will emphasize the importance of evasion and even more towards flying, horsemanship, and unblockable evasions. Trample will still work here but they will be soaking up damage making it difficult to get much for progress done. We also have some issues defending ourselves from the token armies coming back at us so some cards such as Silent Arbiter / Crawlspace / The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale can help against them. Fog effects can also be useful since token armies tend to run Overrun type of effects.
Prison Term / Bound in Silence oddly these effects can be incredibly difficult to deal with. I once lent my rebel deck out and tried playing Thrun and realized that it was incredibly difficult to attempt to break through Bound in Silence since I needed to exile it somehow to free myself of it for good. Its an odd corner case situation but its really hard to break through. Generally speaking though most of these effects are difficult to get on Thrun in the first place for opponents and even if they do, we are green and can answer them. The worst by far is if they happen to be a rebel deck due to Bound in Silence.
Fogs - Fogs can also be a problem for this type of deck. Recurrable fogs like Spike Weaver and Constant Mists are incredibly difficult to answer in mono green. Generally speaking my answer to these is to try to gum up the lands and run my opponents out of resources. It is somewhat rare though to find a decks that establish reusable fogs early in games though but it does happen on occasion. You have to consider if you want to save them for last and accept that they will be established or try to keep pushing on them and see if their defenses will fall.
Card Options
Cards in this section represent optional selections for this deck. Cards that can be found within my own current decklist will be bolded. I tried to just pick the cards that I could see being potentially used in a Thrun list. Generally speaking if a card isn't listed here I just dont see the card making a Thrun list for one reason or another.
Arbor Elf its cheap, it comes in early, and it ramps into a faster Thrun. Generally I like my ramp to either ramp into a turn two Thrun or not die to a creature wrath though. If you do have some issues with some edict based effects though picking up some mana dorks can help combat the edict effects.
Birds of Paradise its cheap, it comes in early, and it ramps into a faster Thrun. Generally I like my ramp to either ramp into a turn two Thrun or not die to a creature wrath though. If you do have some issues with some edict based effects though picking up some mana dorks can help combat the edict effects. The fact that it has flying means it can potentially take a hit from a flying commander which is a nice pickup in utility here. The other one drop mana dorks do just fine though but if you dont mind putting some money down its solid.
Brown Ouphe its an interesting controlling effect that can be activated for the same cost as Thrun's regeneration. Its fun as it can counter Oblivion Stones and Nevinyrral's Disk which is a nice bonus. I would say its a bit of a situational meta call but hes cool and interesting.
Elvish Pioneer another ramp option. The problem here is that I would consider this sort of like a budget Exploration / Burgeoning. Ideally I dont think he belongs at all but if you want to be ramping into thrun faster and cheaply its an option.
Fyndhorn Elves its cheap, it comes in early, and it ramps into a faster Thrun. Generally I like my ramp to either ramp into a turn two Thrun or not die to a creature wrath though. If you do have some issues with some edict based effects though picking up some mana dorks can help combat the edict effects.
Llanowar Elves its cheap, it comes in early, and it ramps into a faster Thrun. Generally I like my ramp to either ramp into a turn two Thrun or not die to a creature wrath though. If you do have some issues with some edict based effects though picking up some mana dorks can help combat the edict effects.
Spore Frog its cheap and its a decent deterrant. The hard part is that it can just disappear on you at really inconvenient times. I generally try not to run defensive creatures like this but if your meta lets you get away with deterrant creatures or runs creature removal light it can be fun. Generally speaking though the metas that run creature heavy that could use a fog also run a good amount of creature removal.
Ulvenwald Tracker this gives us reusable removal. The great thing too is that it costs the same to regenerate Thrun as to activate this. That means that we can keep up two mana and wait and see how things go before we commit to doing anything.
Argothian Enchantress really solid creature for an enchantress build. Having shroud adds some value to her in an enchantress deck. Being that this is green as well you can reliably tutor for her too which is very useful. I think she is probably one of the most important creatures for an enchantress list to run. Broken Fall and Molting Skin can be used as sort of draw engine with some of these ETB enchant triggers to loop them several times.
Ambush Viper its a cool creature that has some nice versatility to him. He can be used as instant speed removal, or be used to fight off an edict effect. Nobody expects the green player to drop an instant speed deathtoucher in on them. Unfortunately its an entirely defensive creature.
Deadly Recluse its a defensive creature that trades with whatever comes your way. It has reach as well so its a nice little pillow-fort creature. Unfortunately it serves nothing but a defensive measure so its a bit narrow and depending on if you see a lot of creature removal it can be less good.
Elvish Visionary it is a cheap creature that can be useful to fight edict effects, give you blockers, or just sort of move through your deck. It doesn't really have much synergy with what we are doing per say but it doesn't set you back much and it gives you some defense vs a few strategies. Generally speaking I would run Wall of Blossoms first as this deck doesn't have much that a 1/1 can do for it that a 0/4 doesn't do better.
Fauna Shaman if you find yourself running a good number of creatures this can be a solid option. It gives you versatility in your creatures but as I run my own list as a creature light list it has no place here. In general I almost always want to be running Survival of the Fittest before I consider this though.
Heart Warden this guy has the advantage of being able to ramp into Thrun and yet be sacrificed later for a card. His sacrifice is conveniently cheap as well fitting in with the two mana we usually want to keep up for a few options.
Overgrown Battlement this guy is a bit more defensive but still ramps into thrun. It works better with the more walls you run and there is actually several walls that could be worth running in here if you wanted to.
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary he ramps into an early Thrun and powers me to big mana quickly. This is about the only mana doubler that I like in this deck because of the fact that he still ramps into Thrun. He works really well too if you like running some effects to screw with mana too.
Sakura-Tribe Elder he ramps into thrun and gives me a body to do things with. I tend to tutor for him if I get stuck on lands but I like how later in the game he can buy me a block and still get a land. Generally speaking this sort of creature just gets a lot more use than a Rampant Growth does.
Scavenging Ooze he gives me pinpoint grave removal in a tutor-able creature and a fatty who gets bigger and gains me life. I like the versatility he gives all in all and being tutor-able is great as green doesn't have a lot of tutor-able grave hate effects.
Shinen of Life's Roar this gives a temporary Lure effect for thrun if you need it or you can use it as a creature to taunt for thrun to make him unblockable.
Tajuru Preserver if you run into a lot of edicts regularly then I might suggest picking this guy up. Unfortunately he dies to like any other removal but it can buy you time against something like a Savra deck or something of the sort.
Vine Trellis essentially the same as Overgrown Battlement assuming you dont run multiple defenders. It ramps into Thrun earlier and gives a nice blocker + some resistance to edicts.
Viridian Zealot artifact / enchantment hate. Its useful that its on a creature as its tutorable and cheap. It works against Torpor Orb effects or while using our own Torpor Orb which is nice as well.
Wall of Blossoms a good little blocker that gives some good card advantage. He draws when he comes in and he can block fairly well. Generally speaking Thrun takes over the offense for this deck so having a blocker can help on defense.
Wall of Roots really sort of a cool creature as it can ramp into thrun and other things. I can get multiple mana from it over a turn duration as well. I often like to keep like two mana up when I am done with my turn for optional things. I can use a mana from this wall on my turn and use another mana during someone else's turn to regen / do whatever as well.
Carven Caryatid I would likely be running both Wall of Blossoms and Elvish Visionary before considering this guy but these cheap draw effect creatures are nice to give some blockers and edict defense. I probably wouldnt go as far as to run this card though unless you run into a lot of edicts regularly.
Caustic Wasps This is some nice repeat artifact removal. I would say that its a lot better against metas that run less creatures. The less creatures metas run usually makes less creature removal. I like this sort of thing to fight against some combo heavy metas as blowing up stones and utility artifacts is really solid. Its sort of slow to get value but it continues to generate great hate and stalls opponents artifacts.
Eternal Witness great versatile recovery card. Its on a stick to boot and while that doesn't matter that much here, its still a great card and a good target for creature tutors.
Junk Diver there are some great artifacts in the list and depending on how much hate you run into having some recursion helps. It also can buy you a turn against some voltron commanders potentially.
Loaming Shaman optional graveyard hate if you find yourself not liking the ooze or his price tag. I personally always like the option of exiling graveyards rather than just cycling them back in. Still hes a solid option and a much easier budget one. I like having at least one tutorable grave hate so if you dont run the Ooze, I would recommend having this guy.
Mindbender Spores when facing down some voltron decks on a regular basis this might be one of the best deterrents you could use. Its a creature with flying so it can block most anything and we can tutor for it. Then it proceeds to buy us 4 turns beyond its own block where they cant untap. Nobody is going to swing a commander into this so it makes a great pillow fort. Generally speaking I dont like defensive creatures but if you play against some voltron that gives you problems this seems like a promising option.
Ohran Viper it draws cards and can act as a pseudo deathtouch blocker if need be. I like the versatility it brings and more card draw that doesn't depend on Thrun in play is really nice to have. Don't forget we have tons of buffs that if need be you can use on him to punch through for draw.
Sylvok Replica removal on a stick that isn't affected by Torpor Orb and recovers from things like Buried Ruin if you run it. I like this guy but at the same time you can pick up more versatility with something like Brutalizer Exarch. He is an interesting choice though but I don't really value bodies that much in this deck.
Tempting Licid its sort of cool because it can act as a Lure that can dodge enchantment removal. You can disable it as well if you dont want the lure anymore. Unfortunately still needs to tap to attach otherwise it would be totally crazy cool.
Verduran Enchantress another important and powerful creature for enchantress builds. Argothian Enchantress is going to be a lot better but redundancy is always good. This will keep the draw power going in an enchantress deck. Broken Fall and Molting Skin can be used as sort of draw engine with some of these ETB enchant triggers to loop them several times. Plus they can defend this enchanter due to her being a creature without shroud.
Viridian Corrupter artifact removal on a stick. What I like here is that there is always a chance of just infect murdering someone and shrinking an attacker by 2 is a lot better than the other 2/2 options that do the same thing. There are two other three mana green creatures with the same effect but I didnt bother mentioning them as I think that this creature is just better for the most part.
Forgotten Ancient nice big buff over time. My biggest problem was that if he would do anything at all was entirely uncertain. Hes cool and gets Thrun huge however I found him somewhat unreliable and slow as it would take at least a whole turn of him and Thrun being in play to get some tokens going on Thrun then you still need trample to get through.
Glissa Sunseeker reusable artifact destruction. I am usually for fast effects however against combo or heavy mana stone decks I could see this being solid. It also gives a nice first strike blocker but generally I like creatures I can use right away for at least a single removal rather than relying on value over time removal.
Krosan Vorine its a nice bit of removal. The fact that it cant be multi blocked means that anything small we can take out with this guy. Plus dont forget that we run tons of pump in this deck so potentially we could pump and provoke some nice removal from him. I keep meaning to actually get some good playtime with him in but keep worrying that its a little slow and small.
Master of the Wild Hunt he gives some really cool control to the deck. Free tokens every turn and the ability to fight other creatures is great. Remember that you only need to trample once damage exceeds lethal so if someone blocks you can always have a few wolves fight something to get damage going on the blocker. After having played the deck with him for a long time I ended up cutting him from the list because he dropped in at an odd mana. This deck wants to push Thrun as a priority so I found myself dropping Thrun and trying to bring him up to speed over dropping a creature like this.
Oracle of Mul Daya I like oracle as sort of an advantage engine but its sort of slow in here as a 4 drop. I want to have lots of topdeck manipulators as well to set this up correctly. I dont always like my opponents to know what I am drawing either as occasionally it makes them make preemptive moves against me.
Silent Arbiter he has a good effect that works well against tokens and swarm decks and in favor of voltron decks. Unfortunately being an artifact creature makes him very fragile from a lot of removal out there. He gives defense but only as long as he can stick around. I dont particularly like defensive measure creatures as they disappear at inopportune times.
Solemn Simulacrum ramp plus draw but unfortunately he is rather slow to kick in. I generally look for ramp to speed up Thrun and sadly he just doesn't fit that idea. Hes a good creature all around but he isn't ramping when I want to be.
Wickerbough Elder artifact / enchantment removal and it works through Torpor Orb which is nice. Generally speaking though I like the deathtouch + ability to hit lands though of Acidic Slime over this guy.
Willow Satyr really sort of a random effect for green to have. Sadly his effect is slow to use and works the best with sac outlets and haste. Its a really cool effect for a mono green deck to have though but I am mostly interested in fast results.
Acidic Slime solid removal with a deathtouch body. He is a good deterrent and has good versatility. The downside is that we run Torpor Orb and 5 mana to blow something up can be a bit expensive in comparison for green.
Bellowing Tanglewurm Intimidation is an interesting evasion. Unfortunately, green creatures are plenty popular in EDH and I would generally say most tokens tend to be green as well. I guess this would be a meta card if usable at all but intimidation in mono green seems really hit and miss.
Genesis creature recovery. I run a very creature light deck and getting him into the graveyard seems like an issue. If you wanted to run him in a deck with more creatures he could be an option. Getting him to the graveyard in mono green can be done by drawing over hand size limit or by casting him into a sac outlet. Worst case you can slow roll him and use him as a pillow fort effect for a while.
Hystrodon some card draw but his cost isn't real low and his power isn't real high. He can push through some ETB chumps but beyond that I dont really know... I think I like Ohran Viper more thanks to the deathtouch and cheaper casting cost.
Kalonian Hydra if you want to go a little bit of a token theme this guy offers a large buff option for that style of play. I like him as a potential backup wincon as well but being that we have few creatures in play he might be extra vulnerable to creature removal. He has nice synergy though if you are already running heavy +/+ counter themed but I don't see ever running him before Forgotten Ancient is in the list.
Precursor Golem its sort of cool as you get three of them in one. It works really cool with anything you might cast on a creature such as Hunter's Insight or Tower Above. Unfortunately there aren't a ton of spells to take advantage of it here but it still gums up the board decently and is interesting.
Seedborn Muse The more tap mana to do things during other people's turns you have the more useful this is. Sadly it doesn't really have a lot of direct interaction with Thrun beyond keeping regenerate mana up so you would need a lot of mana intensive abilities sort of in my mind to make this good.
Silklash Spider some solid flying defense. Its sort of slow though as it isn't cheap to drop. Still if you run into things like Storm Herd regularly its a good call. Generally though I just need pinpoint flying removal though but it does still block as a 2/7 which is nice.
Stingerfling Spider flying spot removal. Its not overly impressive but it does give some quick work and leaves a reach blocker after answering a flyer. I am not overly impressed with it though.
Wolfir Silverheart a nice sized buff for Thrun. Generally though I dont like having creatures trying to buff Thrun as I think creatures are the easiest thing to remove. Still, its nice to have an option of a creature to tutor for as a buff. It doesn't give trample but +4/+4 is a decent buff.
Arachnus Spinner this might seem like a joke of a creature but honestly this is great anti commander tech. It can come into play and immediately tutor into a lock down effect. It can recover its lock-down effect every turn as well so even if the creature is huge we can lock it up. Obviously if you run this you are going to want to include Arachnus Web. The great thing about Arachnus Web is that it can lock down tap ability commanders as well. Believe me when I say that I have put some consideration into this guy. There is no wait before you can tutor into the aura and it can be repeated over and over from the graveyard. Its a solid piece of control tech for sure.
Brutalizer Exarch it can answer problematic non-creatures and it can tutor for creatures. Its a good backup to go get thrun or answer something but I decided that I liked the versatility of Primal Command a bit more than I like the Exarch. The fact that I get a grave hate option on the command seems like a nice pickup for the list. Still I think the Exarch is a decent pick but we dont really abuse creatures and a 3/3 doesn't really matter in here.
Duplicant creature spot removal is hard to come by in green. This gives me an option to exile as well so there is no recursion. Its useful to have these in case you see an eldrazi monster come along for sure. A good portion of the creature removal in this deck is based off of Thrun so a bit of standalone removal is nice to have.
Kamahl, Fist of Krosa potentially he could be used as an anti sweeper effect and a reusable overrun effect. The big issue is that he is really mana intensive to try to drop and do anything with. If you see very little spot removal or heavy sweepers I would recommend playing around with him as he can punish people who are too sweeper heavy.
Steel Hellkite another solid option to remove tokens, creatures, buffs, whatever. I like the things he can remove and luckily if he gets stolen destroying an artifact creature is actually quite manageable for this deck. I think he has potential but unfortunately he is a slow to kick in value over time creature that everyone else wants to remove.
Wurmcoil Engine versatile creature that can serve defense or offense. It is hard to effectively remove and it gives an option to gain some life as well.
Avenger of Zendikar Sort of an all in one winning machine. It provides a lot of bodies as well as pumping them up. Sadly its easily answered and if the avenger itself is answered we have little ways of buffing the tokens. Its a lot of power and it is usually the strongest in an answer light meta.
Hornet Queen One big defensive no stick. Other than wrathing the board its really hard to unravel all of these flying defensive tokens. This is a good option against aggro and voltron strategies and really bad against combo strategies.
Krosan Tusker It gives some easy card advantage in its cycle effect. It doesn't ramp us at all though its just a small bit of card advantage and it sort of lacks versatility. He almost never sees actual play in game unless someone uses a Living Death either.
Pelakka Wurm A decent beater with some lifegain / card draw involved. He is cool and a solid budget card but there seems to always be better things to be doing. He is never really amazing but I like a lot of the things he can do. He might also be sort of a pet card of mine though. I always like him but can never justify running him.
Skarrg Goliath its a big meaty buff for Thrun on a creature. What I like here though is that he can only be countered by Stifle effects and Naturalize doesn't screw with him either. Considering how hard to screw with Thrun at instant speed we already have set up this gives a great finisher effect that most people don't see coming and can do little about. As a downside though several of the better tutors this deck can run put creatures directly into play rather than in hand. Its also a one shot effect that will likely just accomplish what Berserk does anyways for a lot more mana.
Spearbreaker Behemoth indestructible creature that hands out indestructibility. With the change to legend rules its sort of cool but considering that tuck wraths are one of our biggest concerns and this doesn't help against them its hard to justify. If you manage to see a lot of wraths that just disallow regeneration this might be worth considering but I just see the defensive capabilities of him in this deck to be a bit narrow. What he offers just seems to be a little low for this deck.
Tornado Elemental this is a really nice flying creature hate card. I really like this guy especially if you spring him on a Kalia deck as it just swats down just about everything flying. The ability to send damage through is useful for hitting planeswalkers too occasionally. Generally speaking though my complaint with him is how much he costs and that its only a one time thing. Often if you are having troubles with flyers its a continuous issue with flyers.
Craterhoof Behemoth ok, I honestly don't know how anyone would be running this guy in a Thrun deck. If you do somehow end up with a bunch of bodies randomly its not bad. Still.... I don't know how you would end up with a bunch of bodies to make this pump decent. His effect is ideally sort of what Thrun is looking for but you would need to be quite token oriented for it to work here.
Patron of the Orochi he lets us untap Thrun as well as mana to do things with him. He is interesting but super slow and expensive. Plus he untaps other green player's permanents. He tends to be a good option for big mana dump type of decks. Seeing how this deck is built with a generally low curve I think you would be hard pressed to include him with a deck that resembled my own list.
Skarrg Goliath generally speaking the only thing you will be doing with this is his Bloodrush option. Giving Thrun an uncounterable +9/+9 and trample at instant speed sounds totally sick though. I haven't gotten around to playtesting with this yet but it holds potential. I think its best though if your opponents are running some heavy counterspells or instant speed artifact / enchantment removal. Still its great that this is on a creature as it gives some potential power to things such as creature to hand tutors.
Terastodon he gives a lot of removal in a single card. The elephants that you hand out can be slightly annoying though as well due to the fact that you need to usually trample over them with thrun. It is also rather slow to cast and often overkill for situations that arise. If you find yourself needing to clear out a lot of targets on average though it can provide a decent effect. Watch out for all those elephants though as they are annoying to deal with.
Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger he gives a nice mana buff but more importantly he screws with opponents lands. I like decks that use tons of mana and or cheat him into play in some way or another. I find him usually a bit lackluster but he could be an option in a resource disruption plan. I just find him too easy to answer and continue from and all of your opponents should be focusing on removing him.
Woodfall Primus the persist is nice as he is a robust creature. He also makes for a less painful Bribery targets than something like Terastodon as your opponents will only get a single remove trigger and it will come back to you on the Persist. I like him more though with sacrifice outlets though.
_________________________________REALLY BIG MANA_________________________________
Artisan of Kozilek Assuming you run a higher creature count this guy could be a solid addition to get some rez value in. I don't really run much for creatures though and I would think you need to be pushing close to 20 or so creatures before you consider something like this.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre I am always worried about running this guy in a deck that has problems with answering indestructible creatures. It is really high on the curve as well for a deck that tends to focus on fast ramping too but its a nice alt wincon with some nice control aspects to him.
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth He is really expensive but draws cards and gives a good alt wincon. I guess I like him a little more in here considering I don't know how I would answer Ulamog if he got stolen from me but even then I would have a very hard time answering Kozilek still. Also its very high on the curve and my ramp is early game small ramp. It would be very late before I got this guy out which I am not as much a fan of here.
Chalice of the Void it could give you an option to lock someone out of a combo piece or commander. Sadly it probably has to come down well after they can cast their commander the first time since you have to pay twice the card's cost. Still this is cool tech especially if someone focuses on one specific combo in their deck.
Chrome Mox it can ramp into a faster Thrun. Considering the fact that Thrun costs 4 mana though generally speaking its better to just go with a 1-2 mana option instead as we generally cant come out fast enough to make this effective.
Mana Crypt Turn Two Thrun whoooooo. The big draw back here is the price tag on obtaining one. Still.... its amazing.
Mox Diamond it can ramp into a faster Thrun. Considering the fact that Thrun costs 4 mana though generally speaking its better to just go with a 1-2 mana option instead as we generally cant come out fast enough to make this effective.
Tormod's Crypt its a nice graveyard hate option. I prefer to be able to easily recover or tutor into my grave hate if possible though so I went with another option.
Brittle Effigy instant speed exile removal. It doesn't rely on Thrun which is really nice but paying 4 for an exile is a bit rough.
Expedition Map Keep in mind that Sylvan Scrying does this effect for less mana between dropping and popping it. Other than that though, we run some really nice utility lands so its not too shabby. I run it as a means to try to ramp into a faster Thrun in the early game or go get a nice utility land later. The versatility of these effects is fairly good.
Grafdigger's Cage its actually solid hate but unfortunately its sort of an odd effect that can really be hit and miss. It only effects like two creature tutors in here though so it can be solid. Its hard to tell when its going to be solid though so in general I dont use it much of anywhere. It would be a good sideboard card though for this deck assuming your meta runs such things.
Infiltration Lens solid draw effect. Thrun ends up getting blocked a lot to soak damage even if you do get him evasion. This works as psudo evasion though as well as some people would rather take his damage than give you cards. It has great synergy as well with Lure type of effects to give some power draw as well if you want to include a package for that.
Mana Vault fast ramp. Turn two Thrun yeaaaaaaaa. Its not as good as Mana Crypt or Sol Ring but its a lot cheaper to obtain a copy which is nice.
O-Naginata cheap equipment is nice. It gives Thrun a nice power buff plus trample. I like how its cheap to cast and equip as well. Technically something like Loxodon Warhammer has a better effect however due to the amount of mana between dropping and equipping it, it ends up costing too much mana to handle whereas this equipment can be dropped and equipped in one shot very easily and cleanly.
Pithing Needle its solid for stalling an ability commander or disabling parts of combos. Sadly it must be played preemptively and generally can only hurt one commander. If you regularly have issues with an ability commander though its a nice option to hate on them.
Relic of Progenitus graveyard hate option. I dont much care that it hits my own bin but its still a solid grave hate effect.
Scrabbling Claws another solid grave hate option. Honestly most of the time it does the trick fine and it can slow maul a graveyard too.
Sensei's Divining Top generally speaking I dont care for top-deck manipulation unless I have consistent shuffle effects. I just dont run enough shuffles to feel like it would continue to improve my draws.
Sol Ring fast ramp. Turn two Thrun yeaaaaaaaa. It also has no downsides and taps for 2 mana. Plus they are cheap to get now days.
Triangle of War its fun in the fact that you can fight at instant speed. Sadly though it costs a bit more if you intend to use it right away.
Altar of Dementia Its a cheap sac outlet to sac thrun to in the case of a tuck wrath. The mill is mostly forgettable but self milling can increase recursion options as well. You might be better off using more creature tutors than sac outlets though.
Coldsteel Heart Its cheap, it ramps into Thrun, it helps against land destruction and or land manipulation effects that we might run here.
Contagion Clasp Pseudo removal but I think more importantly it has the proliferate option. If you were to run more token buff options for Thrun this could be interesting. Still its a rather small effect so I think it would probably be more of a theme / budget option than anything.
Culling Dais Sac outlet for Thrun in a tuck wrath. Still.... its not that productive outside of that in here. You might be better off just running a creature tutor.
Cursed Totem This is an interesting hate card. It screws with Thrun's regenerate ability as well as several of the utility creatures in the deck as well though. I think it is interesting but I don't know if it is worth building around. Still, if you need some meta hate for ability commanders it could definitely be considered in addition to things like Pithing Needle and Damping Matrix.
Defense Grid This is a great card to fight counterspell / draw go type of decks with. Generally speaking it will make most things for them just not an option. It screws with some of our own instant spells as well and can give a combo deck an easy way to just win on their turn with opposition having a harder time countering. Still if you go up against a lot of instant speed control its a great option. You might consider cutting into some of the instants and running Hall of Gemstone with it if you go this route.
Fellwar Stone cheap stone, the downside here is that it doesn't work well in Ritual of Subdual and is situational based upon what your opponents run. It could potentially not give you green mana so I prefer the 2 mana stones that tap for green unconditionally.
Mask of Memory solid card draw equipment that works great with trample. The discard a card is minimal considering it draws two cards on connect so its more than just filtering which I love.
Mind Stone a solid 2 mana stone. It can sac itself for a draw which is really solid but I find that green stones are good to have as well so I can run more utility lands. Ritual of Subdual being in the deck also encourages colored stones over colorless ones.
Moss Diamond a solid 2 mana stone. It works well with land disruption effects as well as it gives colored mana and ramps into a faster Thrun.
Nim Deathmantle evasion plus recursion options. If your meta starts running no regenerate wraths more heavily this can be an option to consider. Keeping 4 mana up is sort of rough but it gives more protection and pump + evasion to Thrun which is nice. It works amazingly in combination with Greater Good as well.
Null Rod sort of a meta hate style of card. I would encourage you to adjust your own artifact package in order to run this as well as potentially running it with Damping Matrix. It can work well against mana stones though but its sort of a meta call / theme you need to build around.
Powder Keg its a nice removal effect. It works well against token decks, fast mana stone decks, and decks like Edric which need a lot of cheap dudes in play. I prefer this over Ratchet Bomb due to the fact that they cost the same mana and tick up at the same rate but this one never has a dead time where it is tapped and vulnerable to removal.
Ratchet Bomb similar to Powder Keg it can work well against token decks and a lot of other fast / cheap mana stuff. In general I think the Keg is better of the two but both are solid effects.
Star Compass another cheap mana stone. The downside here is that we need to have the ability to tap for green mana to use it. If we are screwed on colored mana from a bad start or Ritual of Subdual it doesn't work. Thus I try to stick to the 2 mana stones that naturally tap for green.
Torpor Orb solid hate for ETB creature decks. We have a few creatures that this affects but generally very very few. It tends to draw a lot of hate but its such a strong effect. I just wish I could tutor for it... putting it on legs would be amazing.
Trailblazer's Boots solid evasion. I cant think of many if any decks that this deck would have an issue with that this wouldn't give evasion against. Sadly, evasion alone isn't that desirable to spend a whole card on.
Umezawa's Jitte this gives removal options to Thrun or big pump options. Every connect can give him +4/+4 on his next attack. Generally speaking I wouldn't bother stockpiling many counters from this as if it gets blown up gaining life is not very desirable.
Winter Orb land disruption can be really solid when we have a somewhat low curve to the deck and can assemble Thrun up very quickly to be a threat. I never see the dang thing but its good disruption to people's continuous ramp / mana hungry plans.
Crawlspace generally speaking I would say that this is an anti token / aggro card. I dont much care for it in the fact that it needs to still be in play when it comes to attack step to work. I think there are better cards out there for keeping the token / aggro decks off your back than this.
Crucible of Worlds solid against land destruction effects as well as in combination of fetchland tactics. If you find yourself getting your utility lands blown up a lot it can also be useful. Generally speaking if you are going to run this I would encourage you to invest in a fetchland package as well.
Crystal Ball scry can be a very useful effect in manipulating your draws. I currently have a lot of draw effects in this deck though but I do like this effect. If you find yourself not being able to rely on the Thrun centric draw effects though this can be an option to examine. I tend to like this effect over things like Sensei's Divining Top in decks that dont have a ton of shuffle effects.
Damping Matrix its a nice meta hate / style of deck option. You have to really sort of design your list arround these type of cards in mind but in general you want to look at running this with some combination of Null Rod and Cursed Totem.
Darksteel Plate indestructibility can help against combat and non tuck / exile wraths. Generally speaking there aren't a ton of wraths that fall into the no regen that aren't tuck / exile though.
Diviner's Wand it gives flying, pump, and the ability to draw cards off of it. Sadly the draw effect on it is very expensive for the return it gives. Its an interesting option to draw cards for the turn off of other effects which turns into a bigger Thrun but it seems like a bit much to really expect.
Fireshrieker double strike is totally backbreaking. I push trample on a lot of my stuff as well so even swinging with a 6 powered double strike Thrun is a very fast clock. Its more acceptable on its mana cost as well since Thrun costs 4 mana and this costs 5 to drop + equip making for a nice follow up to dropping him or slow rolling it in before he comes in. It is really nice in a buff heavy list but you usually get more value out of dropping your other buffs before it then dropping the Shrieker after he is buffed up for a really surprisingly powerful punch.
Kill Switch great meta hate style of card. Most of the artifacts in here don't really need to be untapped so it works great against artifact mana decks. It seems like a meta call though to me as I could see this being either really effective or really a dud. It has potential to have some solid synergy with Static Orb as well though.
Kusari-Gama an expensive fire-breathing effect and a means to spread his damage over all creatures the blocking player controls. Generally speaking if people are blocking Thrun they are dropping what they can in his way to stall him so I don't really see this being that productive unless you are also running more Provoke effects.
Loxodon Warhammer solid buff with trample and lifegain tagged onto it. Generally speaking though, I feel like the equip cost is a bit high for what you get from it. I like O-Naginata a little more due to this. If you ramp into Thrun at all Loxodon Warhammer gets weird as you have to drop it one turn and equip it the next. If you are slow rolling into Thrun its not as bad as you can drop it before him but I dont care as much for the 3 mana 3 to equip stuff due to that.
Mimic Vat we are running creature light so if you run this you will need to rely on opponents creatures to give you value here. I have always found it sort of slow to get started and in a deck that doesn't really answer creatures nicely I don't much care for this sort of thing.
Nemesis MaskLure on an equipment. Sadly its expensive to drop and equip so you might consider just running an actual Lure instead. I have often questioned if these effects might be useful however more often than not the creatures hitting play are already blocking Thrun and it would mostly just work the turn it comes down then people would play around it.
Oblivion Stone versatile wrath. You can sit behind it as well if you want to play some politics.
Orb of Dreams resource disruption tactics. This can screw with people as new lands come in tapped and fetchlands are really painful. Dropping blockers in is slow as well. Its hard to think two turns out as well.
Phyrexian Portal another interesting card drawing tool. You have to be ok with it not always turning out great but it can potentially dig is deep for useful cards. This deck isn't a big mana deck which is a downside for this effect since its generally a pay tons of mana for useful things effect. Most opponents will try to split it so the useful or strong cards are all in the same stack so you have a 50% chance of getting good things then you only get one of them and the others get shuffled back in. Still, its a cool card draw tool to look at in a deck where you don't need any specific cards to win so much as just needing more cards.
Puppet Strings tap or untap is useful to have. This let Thrun smash through or untap him to defend us. It can also be used on opponents creatures so that things like Tower Above, Provoke, and Revenge of the Hunted connect assuming they aren't tap ability creatures.
Sculpting Steel It can copy other artifacts which is fairly simple. Its nice to copy solid artifacts of ours but a lot of times those nice ones dont last long. I go back and forth on how I feel about it but its nice in really artifact heavy / ramp decks. I don't quite like it here though.
Static Orb another resource denial tactic. It has the advantage of not affecting you if it is tapped so if you run Icy Manipulator, Kill Switch, Ring of Gix type of effects remember you can tap it down before you untap. I don't worry too much about making it one sided but even how it stands, the untapping of only two permanents is really solid to just slow the game down and allows us get more beats in potentially.
Strata Scythe this can give a very large buff. It lacks trample though but it also takes opponents lands into consideration as well with this. I wouldn't run any snow lands if you want this to work out though. I didn't like where it hit on the mana to drop and equip in the same turn though and it lacks trample.
Sunstone solid fog permanent. You will want to probably run mostly all snow lands if you play this. There is the downside of it being a target for removal. However it also gives an incentive not to come at you as long as it sticks. Keep in mind that artifacts are only slightly more difficult to remove than creatures (Spike Weaver) but a lot harder to tutor for. It has its pros and cons for sure.
Sword of Feast and Famine untapping lands can be really important. It opens us up to regenerate on opponents turns, set up more things in our second main, and the protections are quite relevant for evasion. It is really nice if you are going somewhat light on your auras, instants, and sorcery buffs of thrun. I saw more promising results from being more disruption based with this when I had a lower number of buffs for thrun but keep in mind you cant cast things on him when he is pro green and auras will fall off to its equip.
Sword of Fire and Ice card draw, evasion, and removal all on an equipment that buffs Thrun. I really like what this sword does but the protections are sadly really not great for Thrun given the other color options to make him connect.
Sword of Vengeance this is a solid offense + defense equipment. It allows us to attack out and still defend ourselves. Trample + power buff + first strike are all very great abilities as well for Thrun. I really dislike how much it costs to drop plus equip but its been one of the more potent expensive equipments so far.
Tangle Wire another resource denial tactic. Generally speaking though, I like this a lot more with decks that can run away with a few turns. It deteriorates and falls apart on its own so it could be nice just for buying some time to hit people with Thrun however he tends to do fairly well the first few turns he is out anyways.
Erratic Portal Potential disruption against opponents or a means to save Thrun from wraths / tucks. I think it is cool but at the same time a creature tutor does the same without as many questionable aspects to them.
Grappling Hook Double Strike is totally crazy and the fact that it can force blockers as well seems cool. Still.... I think the double strike is mostly the only thing huge on this and it costs too much to drop and equip. Fireshrieker could potentially be a lot better due to its smaller cost + equip costs.
Icy Manipulator this can give some valuable disruption to blockers / attackers / resources. It seems best to me against voltron commanders especially flying ones. Keeping a commander like Kaalia from attacking could be totally game breaking assuming you could lock her up fast enough.
Jester's Cap this is a great tool to fight against combo decks with. The better you know your opponents decks as well the better it is as you really need to tear apart the best of their combos so know which pieces to strip to be effective with something like this.
Nevinyrral's Disk its a nice sweeper effect however I have on more than one occasion had issues with the fact that it comes in tapped and thus is sort of slow to be available. Its nice though if you can set it up while ahead as it is really daunting to play into however its really bad when you need it while doing poorly. I like Oblivion Stone a lot more due to the comes in tapped issue.
Nova Pentacle being so creature light is actually really good for something like this. Also, you get to pick the opponent that chooses the target of the damage so this can work as a great deterrent from opposing voltron commanders.
Portcullis this is an odd means of creature control. You need to get Thrun in before this and then it can control future creatures coming in. Sadly they still trigger ETB triggers so its really bad against ETB creature decks and fairly good against token strategies. In general I don't really see it being all that playable though overall. There just seem to be better means in which to do what it achieves. The worst case would be if you had this in play and someone kills Thrun. From there you might not be able to replay him and that would be really bad.
Power Matrix it gives flying evasion + trample + first strike. There is a small power buff as well and it doesnt cost mana to equip either. Its a nice buff but I found the buff aspect a bit small overall for its mana cost.
Smokestack assuming you wanted to go more of a stax theme here. You could go with some fast token tactics as well and rely on opponents loosing early game resources. Thrun doesn't really have much for natural affinity for these type of tactics other than just being a hard to remove beat stick though. This would be a bit of a stretch in my mind and likely not the best commander for these type of tactics.
Tawnos's Coffin it can save Thrun from wraths or hold someone's creature / commander up for some time. I think its a really cool effect but I worry about how much it costs to drop and equip. Its really cool though that it keeps auras and tokens on him though. Its interesting if nothing else but mana cost is worrisome.
Vedalken Orrery flash can allow you to play around things like Wraths and such. Due to the fact that this deck requires several attacks and thrun to stick around I haven't found it overly productive. I like it more for alpha strike type of decks where taking pseudo two turns in a row is really backbreaking. Generally speaking though, buffs need to be applied to Thrun prior to attacking or in the attack phase, so I haven't really found it too productive for keeping my mana up.
Memory Jar Seeing a new hand can be very useful. I don't run a ton of cards to pitch to the graveyard for good value though and this deck isn't built around huge mana. Its nice that I dont have a ton of really expensive things in my list so I should be able to get a few effects off or one really big effect from this. The downside currently is that I am not a big ramp deck so it can be hard to spit out a lot of cards in one turn with this and it is vulnerable to removal until I can untap and use it.
Mind's Eye solid card draw that doesn't rely on Thrun. It feels sort of clunky due to how much mana you usually want when you drop this but I cant always rely on Thrun reliant draw to get me there.
Pariah's Shield since Thrun can regenerate we can easily ship him the damage and just regenerate. This equipment is really expensive to drop and put on though plus you need to be able to regenerate afterwards and its not that hard for most aggro decks to deal with a single artifact to get past you. Still, its a cool fog like effect that you can look at using.
Predator, Flagship the option of flying evasion for thrun or to fly a creature to block. You can use it diplomatically as well if you want and it can destroy creatures as well. Its nice but its slow and expensive to use. It gives slow value as well being that its sort of expensive to drop as well as use.
Worldslayer the only ways I really see to use this card is either to 1) Darksteel Plate Thrun 2) Indestructable mana sources to regenerate aka Darksteel Citadel + Darksteel Ingot 3) Destroy Worldslayer in response to its trigger and regenerate Thrun. Overall its sort of gimmicky and slow but its mean.
Argentum Armor this gives great removal and a really sick buff. The problem is that this is stupidly hard to drop and equip in the same turn. On top of that, its damn scarry to think that it gets hooked up to Thrun... Generally speaking I dont like using this equipment because it never seems to last long enough to get an activation. Still, I would run this over something like Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre in here. Its sort of a high risk high reward style of card. On the upside here, Thrun is hard to target so for the most part you are just putting it on opponents to answer the armor in a turn rotation.
Staff of Nin card draw and potential spot removal. The pings from this are nice for removing chump blockers or trampling over sooner. Pinging for one damage can be surprisingly useful and extra card draw is always welcome in my book.
Akroma's Memorial solid evasion and haste. The problem I have with it is that it doesn't increase Thrun's output really any more than just giving him un-blockable. Its cool stuff but I moved away from it due to the high cost, fear factor, while it never really did much for output. People would smash it up and I just couldn't get the kind of value from it I wanted to see to keep it around.
Spine of Ish Sah removal that is actually sort of cool with the more artifact sweepers you see in your meta. Generally speaking this is better than Desert Twister but it still doesn't exile targets so I run Karn Liberated over it.
Burgeoning another means of getting a turn two Thrun. Sadly it involves some card disadvantage but in general I think this sort of effect is a lot stronger than the Mox options. It is one of those effects that's really solid turn one to ramp yourself into a fast Thrun but looses its power quickly. I like it in decks that intend to push for hyper fast kills. I have found though with Thrun its hard to accelerate reliably into those excessively fast wins in this means though.
Elephant Grass an interesting deterrent effect but with a limited lifetime to it. I really wish it could have just been a Propaganda effect but I suppose its better that green doesn't just have a blue / white effect straight up. I don't really like how temporary it is as well as the fact that it ties up resources and is only a deterrent. I would rather stick to a handful of fogs.
Exploration similar to Burgeoning in the fact that it is best for pushing for really fast starts. It is more useful than Burgeoning in the fact that it can pick up value off of things like Crucible of Worlds to replay something like a Strip Mine or fetchland a few times in a turn. Generally speaking I wouldn't run it though unless I was pushing for a faster presence though due to giving up card advantage for ramp that quickly runs out of steam.
Keen Sense its nice card draw but its reliant on Thrun connecting and its worse than several others that are already being run in here. Its cheap but for two more mana you get Snake Umbra which is just so much better in so many ways.
Mirri's Guile topdeck manipulation is really cool. You definitely need to emphasis shuffle effects though if you are going to run topdeck manipulation though. Start by adding fetchlands and potentially kick off of ramp / creature tutors to back it up with shuffle effects. Stagnant topdeck is not a great thing to get.
Rancor great power buff + trample + self recurs. This thing is really hard to get rid of for opponents as generally speaking killing the creature in response to the rancor is the way to kill it so it puts them just to counters, grave hate, hand hate, or exile an enchant effects. Its really cheap and robust and it adds all the things we want to see to Thrun.
Storm Front solid flying defense. The only problem is that if its a flying voltron commander they might be packing shroud / hexproof effects. Also, this depends on how your meta handles declaring attackers. In some metas you can wait until they just do their attacks to do this stuff and others will make you step through it and force you to tap it before they pick a direction to go.
Wild Growth cheap ramp. Its not particularly big ramp and it doesn't ramp that hard. Generally speaking I would rather ramp another land at two mana or drop a trinket than load a land up like this. Generally speaking I wouldn't recommend going this route.
Ground Seal We don't really run a ton of grave recursion so this could be a solid option to sort of try to keep people out of graveyards. It stops some effects and it doesn't stop others. Generally speaking its usually better to run something with guaranteed value where you know you can stop the shenanigans. I like how it draws a card when it comes in though upfront and doesn't require any further attention though.
Lifeforce great sideboard option if your meta allows sideboarding. Otherwise I wouldn't worry about it unless your meta is heavy saturated with players who play mono black or something.
Night Soil grave yard hate as well as token spawning. Unfortunately its selective as to what you can hate on with it and when you can do it. The tokens are a bit meh as well but its reusable at instant speed and not on a stick.
Survival of the Fittest generally speaking survival is best in a creature heavy deck. I wouldnt even really consider it unless your count was at least 20+. Its a good tool though if you want to go a heavier creature route.
Sylvan Library it allows you to do topdeck manipulation and draw. Generally I like it more than Sensei's Divining Top due to the ability to draw cards in a pinch. Still, it would benefit from some more shuffle effects than I currently run.
Arachnus Web this card is intended to be run along side of Arachnus Spinner. Its not that impressive of a lockdown on its own but when its being cheated in repeatedly it can gum up voltron strategies or you can try to lock up utility commanders. It could potentially be run on its own if you see a lot of utility commanders though.
Awakening Zone this gives me blockers, extra mana, and guys to sac to edict effects. Its sort of an odd card because it isnt really continuing my primary strategy but it does a lot of smaller utility things and is somewhat versatile as well. With some of the land disruption untapping effects out there too these guys can provide a nice boost to available mana.
Blanchwood Armor a nice large buff effect for somewhat low mana. On the downside though, it doesn't give any evasion and it has bad synergy with utility lands. It gives a very large buff for the mana cost though.
Boar Umbra due to the change in the legend rule, this got a little bit better for Thrun as he has less things that make him be sacrificed. Still, it does not defend against tuck effects or edict effects so its still sort of narrow in that it helps him against no regenerate wraths for the most part. The buff itself isn't half bad but it lacks evasion so its nothing really amazing.
Choke very much so a sideboard option but if you are really getting murdered by those blue players you could experiment with sliding it in for a few rounds. I generally wouldn't suggest it in the deck but if you have to fight against a lot of blue mages it can get the job done.
City of Solitude great for fighting against the control players. It does screw with a few of our own cards and stops Thrun from regenerating though which sucks. Still... this deals with a ton of draw / go style players and screws with control like crazy.
Enchantress's Presence this is an auto include into enchantress decks. Sadly, green has little for ways to tutor for it so the actual creature enchantresses are more reliable to be able to tutor for generally. I wish it would draw off of itself but its cheap to drop and green has a lot of ways to recover it if it gets taken out.
Hall of Gemstone this screws with control players and multi colored decks. Keep in mind that it potentially screws with Thrun's regenerate ability as well if you don't have a mana stone or creature that taps for mana. You can however in response to the ability on the stack activate a regenerate shield which will last through the duration of the turn. This screws with opponents answers on our turns though which is very useful.
Lure these effects are interesting in the fact that they screw with blockers real nicely. Generally speaking I think lure effects sort of have their impact on the turn they come down then everyone plays around them though.
Oath of the Ancient Wood its an interesting card if you were looking to be sort of an enchantress style of build. It could work really well with things like Broken Fall and Molting Skin which can loop themselves back to hand as they would slightly pump Thrun each time cast as well as potentially drawing off of the enchantresses you might have in play. The hard part about going enchantress is that you loose a lot of valuable effects that white provides for that type of deck.
Snake Umbra card draw, pump effect, and a means to make it through some wraths. I like totem armors and I just wish there was a good buff + trample one but I guess I have to take what I can get.
Vow of Wildness a nice pump, trample, and it actually can be cast on opponents creatures for a control effect. The biggest downside here is if you were trying to swing at the player you have to use this on. Its a nice diplomatic effect especially early on when targets are being picked. It goes on Thrun quite nicely too.
Gaea's Embrace a nice buff and a cheaper regenerate effect. Sadly the regenerate option is mostly wasted on Thrun due to already having regenerate.
Greater Good a means to save Thrun from tuck effects. Its a nice emergency draw effect too. Generally speaking though I never want to drop him to this unless someone is hitting a wrath against me. The more wrath heavy your meta is the better it becomes. However I essentially never wanted to just drop Thrun to this unless there was something bad happening to him.
Gigantiform this gives Thrun +4/+4 and trample. It has better results based upon the initial size of the creature you are placing it on. Considering we can get +3/+3 and trample for around 3 mana and +5/+5 for 6 mana I am not overly impressed. Its not bad but better for smaller initial power commanders.
Tornado this thing really shines in big mana decks. You ideally want to be able to drop it and activate it several times over the next few turns. It works better in multiplayer as you can potentially use it more times in a turn rotation. Still, currently this deck isn't designed to utilize really big mana.
Epic Proportions big buff, trample, flash, and its relatively cheap for its effect. I really like the combination of elements to this card. Plus sometimes people block Thrun differently assuming he isn't going to hugely trample their face in :).
Nature's Wrath generally speaking I would say that this is sideboard tech but considering that it hates on two of the other best colors in the game it could very well be a meta call or just something to play with and see the results. I dont really care to hate on any one strategy but this seems versatile enough that I could see it played.
Primeval Bounty this card does a lot of handy things but the biggest thing it does for this deck is provides Thrun with lots of +/+ counters. I could see this being played with in a lot of different situations and builds. It works well in +/+ counter builds as it drops a lot of pump on Thrun. In enchantress builds it still buffs Thrun quite well and it fits the theme of being an enchantment itself. It does a lot of useful things in a Thrun build but my biggest concern with it is that it is a value over time card that is hard to get immediate value from. It seems to work best with lots of small spells that string together and in decks that draw and play a ton of cards. Its still vulnerable the turn it drops though as its hard to really use it right away.
Recycle its a very interesting card in the fact that the faster you can burn your way through cards the more you get to draw. Due to how it works I would suspect that getting stuck with high curve cards or a few land in hand would be the way you would get sort of stuck with it but it allows for some interesting things. Playing lands still draws you cards but you can potentially get a clump of lands and slow down or you could get stuck with things you cant cast due to needing more mana to play them and not having the resource to do it. Still the chances of casting this in the early game seems low so I think it could be decent.
Ritual of Subdual it gums up the lands and lets you try to push for some damage while things mostly slow to a halt. Its resource denial but it doesnt actually remove the lands and it is temporary so out of everything I think more people are ok with this considering they can also run mana stones through this.
Mythic Proportions really nice huge buff. Eldrazi Conscription is a better effect however this essentially gives me a second really crazy big buff option with evasion. Being that we are in multiplayer I feel like we need a few of these really large buffs for their mana effects to push for finishing people off of minimal buffs.
Eldrazi Conscription the cream of the crop if you are looking for stupid big buffs. This thing is a freight train and it seals up games incredibly fast. That being said, watch out for countermagic and such as it can be like skipping a turn having a counter eat this.
Summoner's Pact its sort of nice because you pay for it later. The downside, is that you pay for it later. Sadly it has a big cost to tutor out so you really sort of need to use it in the mid / late game. It can be nice though when you find yourself really wanting a super big buff for smashing face though but dont want to wait or pay extra for it. It gives a backup plan to go get Thrun as well which is useful.
Berserk this is the cheapest buff / power out there. This can turn into super Thrun in a second thanks to this. Its more suited for 1v1 games than multiplayer but thanks to the regeneration that Thrun has automatically, he can regenerate from this and still swing out for big numbers.
Fog this is a cheap stop to aggro tactics. I generally run some of the better two drop ones though as two mana is sort of the magic number for Thrun.
Nature's Claim the downside of this spot removal is incredibly small for us since we try to win via commander damage. Due to that this is an incredibly easy to multi task removal effect. Its speed and cheap nature make it really incredible at what it does.
Primal Bellow its cheap and it can be a huge buff. The downside is that you need to be potentially running less utility lands and its not so great until later in the game. Still its cool but I dont think it holds up reliably enough.
Worldly Tutor it can tutor for a lot of different things including ramping into thrun if you have it on turn one. Later in the game it can help you recover Thrun if he gets tucked, tutor into removal. It is card disadvantage however it can get me ramp in the early game when I need it and it can get me any of my creatures that I might need in a pinch. I generally try to save this tutor in the mid and late game for pinch situations so as an emergency tutor its not too shabby.
Bind its a green ability counter!!!! And it draws you a card to boot. Sadly it cant hit triggered abilities or it would be really sick but it could be useful sort of depending on what your meta runs.
Constant Mists reusable fog. This thing is funny because non blue aggro decks just sort of go.... uhhhh crap when they see this. This is one of the best fogs out there as really it takes a wheel or a counterspell to answer it.
Lull its a nice fog that can be disposed of if you end up not needing it.
Moment's Peace two fogs all in one. It can work a bit diplomatically for you when its just sitting in the graveyard as well.
Naturalize its cheap instant speed non-creature hate. Its best in combo metas but I would be running Nature's Claim before I approached this option. I find that being cheap is a lot more important when fighting combos but outside of that I can afford to wait until my turn potentially to answer it.
Provoke its cool creature hate. You can use it in other people's attacks as well to gum up utility creatures / commanders. The biggest downside is that they have to be untapped to use this on them. It can be highly dependant on when you draw this and what the board state is as well as who you are playing against as to how something like this works. Also, with just a fight card there is no issue with damage being blocked but the fact that you can use it on other player's attack phases and it draws a card are all interesting elements.
Tangle It gums up attackers for two turns. This can be really big against some infinite creature spawn type of combos as well as against voltron and aggro strategies. It costs two mana too so its right where we want it to be for that 2 mana Thrun loves as well. It is one of my favorite fogs to use if considering a fog package.
Beast Within any permanent removal. Generally speaking its hard to come by this in green and it usually costs a lot more and is sorcery speed. The 3/3 isnt a huge deal but it does soak damage from Thrun. Still.... it blows up anything at instant speed for little mana. You wont find me complaining about it in any means.
Chord of Calling creature tutor that throws it into play. I really like going after Ulvenwald Tracker and or Master of the Wild Hunt using this at end of turn as it makes them more surprising. Acidic Slime and Duplicant also create some great surprises and it gives me another way to go get Thrun if he gets tucked as well.
Crushing Vines this is a fun little piece of removal. Generally speaking I always want to be able to hit an artifact or flying creature. I tend to find this combination option of removal more useful than something like Naturalize as flying creatures tend to give mono green some issues unless you run some hate for them. Artifacts are very common though as well so this gives a nice set of options.
Hunter's Insight this is one of the best draw effects you can come across for a commander like this. Generally speaking the big drawback of something like this is that an opponent might spot remove them in response to the effect. In here though that's not a problem and it generally draws a minimum of 4 cards for 3 mana which is really solid.
Krosan Grip great removal when facing heavy control and or combo decks. If you dont run into too many counterspells, then the only other reason to run this in my mind is to fight off things like Oblivion Stone where players tend to sit behind them.
Lace with Moonglove this has a few different applications such as the fact that if Thrun tramples then he only needs to do a single damage to begin trampling over. It can also be used on opponent's blocking creatures or after attackers are declared to clear out a pesky creature. Players tend to look at death-touch trading off an ETB creature a bit better when facing the option of taking out a big beefy attacker.
Natural Affinity generally speaking the only use for this is to 1) cast it in the middle of a wrath and set up a regenerate. 2) be really mean to someone with something like a lure type effect to eat up their lands. The more lures you run the better land animation becomes.
Rending Vines somewhat cheap removal, it hits most everything I need it to, and it draws me a card. Its a nice all around card. Its a bit annoying when suddenly you find yourself wanting to smash an Akroma's Memorial or something but its also not the only destroy effect in the deck.
Spidery Grasp this can work excellent as some flying creature hate, voltron hate, or just random anti creature move from the green deck which can be a heck of a lot of fun. It can always be used as a surprise instant speed Thrun buff as well since not a lot of buffs come at instant speed. I really love the fact that this makes Thrun a 6/8 without additional buffs even considered. The downside though is that a straight up fight card is less situational.
Spore Cloud Its essentially another Tangle type fog but the problem is that it runs one mana more expensive than Tangle. Two mana is sort of the sweet spot for Thrun as we like to keep up two to regenerate him if possible and so moving to three mana up is a bit annoying.
Wildsize its a small damage buff that can make or break a combat and it also draws a card. Seeing as its temporary though its not a big enough buff to only last a turn on its own. Its cool though and its potentially a cool combat trick but meh.
Might of Oaks its a nice sized buff but it lacks trample and has no re-usability to it.
Momentous Fall its a nice option when Thrun is about to be wrathed but outside of that timeframe I dont really like dropping him to something like this. Four mana is sadly really tough to manage for a potential card that might not be cast.
Mystic Melting nice art / enchant removal but as it doesn't draw until your next turn Slice in Twain is slightly better.
Slice in Twain its nice artifact / enchant removal. Four to cast is a little expensive however it draws a card as well and has no conditions. If you find yourself up against combo decks I would go with a less mana option. Its something decent to consider though if you find yourself wanting a little more card advantage on your removal but I found it a little heavy at 4 to stay in my list.
Relic Crush it can remove up to two targets. Its a nice option if you find yourself constantly needing to hit multiple targets at a time.
Rootgrapple an instant speed Bramblecrush essentially. I probably wouldn't run Bramblecrush however for one more mana instant speed is interesting.... I still dont know if I would actually consider running this but its interesting.
Ancient Stirrings its a decent dig effect sadly the deck just doesn't run enough artifacts for it to really be all that reliable. In most of my testing I would end up with 1-2 targets and about half of the time the only options were lands. If your list ends up being sort of artifact / land heavy it could be decent though.
Green Sun's Zenith it tutors into all the green creature options in the deck. Its nice to have some access to Thrun if he gets tucked and we have some nice utility creature options to go grab as well. Generally speaking if I opening hand this I will go for Ulvenwald Tracker or Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary. If I draw it later I like to save it as a way to tutor thrun in an emergency. If you want to pick up the option to buff Thrun off of creature tutors I would suggest either Forgotten Ancient or Wolfir Silverheart as the options for the cheat into play tutors. Skarrg Goliath is a nice creature based buff too but as he doesn't come into play nicely like half of the creature tutors cant really nicely retrieve him.
Irresistible Prey fun to screw with opponents creatures with it but generally speaking Provoke is better due to being instant speed even if it does cost one more. Still, if you find yourself liking these effects this is essentially the second Provoke for the deck.
Prey Upon great spot removal for the deck as its hard to come across green creature removal. With Thrun being hexproof its generally a nice one sided spot removal. Its really nice to use in the first main phase to remove blockers as well to send more damage through to the player. The downside is that it is a 1 for 1 effect in mono green. Spot removal is nice but it is card disadvantage and this is a sorcery speed 1 for 1 at that. Keep all of this in mind. Even all that being said I still run it as its a solid piece of removal.
Sylvan Tutor a sorcery speed Worldly Tutor. It costs more money and gives a worse result though so run Worldly Tutor long before you even consider this as this one is a lot worse since they both put the creature on top and this is sorcery speed. Its worth noting though at the very least if you are looking for more of these effects.
Explore it ramps into a faster Thrun and its more useful than just strict ramp later in the game. In a mono color deck like this fixing isnt as big of a deal so something like Explore becomes a lot better. This is by far my favorite Rampant Growth effect because we don't really need to color fix in this deck. Later in the game seeing a Rampant Growth is a lot less effective so instead this gives us a cheap cantrip effect later. The one way which this is worse is if you don't have lands in the early game and were trying to ramp. In that situation Explore is worse but I really haven't had much of an issue with that.
Into the North a snow version of Rampant Growth. If you find yourself wanting more Rampant Growth effects and can float at least 3 or so snow lands its not a bad option.
Life from the Loam its a nice land recovery / dredge type effect. If you run into heavy strip mining or mass land destruction its a nice counter defense option. Generally speaking though shy of running into lots of pinpoint or mass land destruction though I wouldn't bother with it.
Living Wish a great card if your meta will let you run a wish-board. Generally speaking though people aren't alright with wish-boards or are running so competitive you probably wont want them to be ok with it lol.
Nature's Lore ramps into a faster Thrun and on the upside the land comes in untapped which is fairly scarce as far as two mana land ramp goes. Run it over the Rampant Growth effects due to coming in untapped.
Rampant Growth ramps into a faster Thrun. There are a lot of these effects available though so it sort of depends on which tactics you want to use and a bit off of what your meta uses that will determine which ramp to run.
Regrowth great recovery tool. Generally speaking I like to draw cards over recover them as recovery requires you to have gotten a good card already and not have it be exiled in the grave. Still, in mono green sometimes you have to backtrack and there are some amazing recovery options available.
Sylvan Scrying grabs any land to hand. Thanks to Ancient Tomb this can also function as early game ramp but it grabs nice utility lands after the first few turns. There are some really nice utility lands in the deck so it can serve as evasion or pump for thrun as well or a few other minor utility roles if need be.
Three Visits if you aren't on a budget, this is a great ramp card and it is better than the Rampant Growth effects as it comes in untapped. Sadly, $20.00 is a lot to pay for a functional reprint of Nature's Lore. It is a nice effect though but generally speaking Nature's Lore doesnt matter that the land comes in untapped but it helps when burning through it later in the game as it only costs me one mana to use it.
Recollect cheap recovery. Its the worst of the two and three mana recovery cards however I find that the higher mana options tend to take up whole turns and be extremely situational as to when you would want to use them. Generally speaking just recovering the key card from my graveyard and being able to use it is all that I need.
Riding the Dilu Horse power buff, evasion, and it leaves nothing behind to target. What most people don't realize at first is that this is an ongoing effect (continues past end of turn). This ties together a lot of really amazing effects for Thrun and leaves nothing to target for opponents. The biggest downside of this card is its price to purchase / trade for one of these. They are hard to come by but this is also one of the few decks I could see anyone running it for.
Tower Above technically... its a 6 mana card but as we are mono green... its really easy to just call it a GGG card here. This gives us removal, pump, and trample all in one. Thrun not having unblockable or flying makes this a lot better as about anything untapped we can force to block him. One of the big things for me is that this is one of the few outs you are going to come by to deal with some creatures with Indestructibility (especially Avacyn, Angel of Hope for me). This is a temporary buff though so it could also be scrapped for a better ongoing effect but the removal portion of this is useful.
Bramblecrush this is a nice versatile bit of removal. Generally speaking I don't worry too much about being able to answer utility land and planeswalkers though as far as Thrun is concerned because I plan on killing people faster than they can generally become a problem. Thrun can always attack planeswalkers too and since he has hexproof he is immune to all of the maze effects currently out there. Due to this I tend to focus more on being able to answer artifacts / enchantments of what this can do and there are cheaper and more effective ways to do that in green.
Harmonize this is a nice bit of card draw that isn't reliant on Thrun which I like. It draws a good number of cards for a reasonable mana cost.
Hunt the Weak I really love the effect that this has but its sorcery speed for too much mana. I would love to have seen it as a 3 mana instant or a 2 mana sorcery and I probably would have played around with it. I felt they went too conservative in its design though but it is on a common. I love these type of effects and it just ended up being overpriced and slow but the effect is really cool. If they had put more pump on it, cheapened it up, or sped it up it would have added a lot more appeal for me.
Increasing Savagery its a very large pump effect. The flashback gives just silly power to Thrun as well. The fact that this gives two waves of pump potentially is very nice. I generally consider +/+ counters to be a superior aura as it will still disappear with Thrun but doesn't leave a permanent to target and remove. The power per mana here is very good but it lacks evasion.
Natural Balance this is another nice option if you want to go the resource denial direction. If people really abuse high land counts in your meta this might be useful to you but the point at which it balances to is a bit odd as its still plenty for opponents to wrath and such. Its an interesting card but I have never really been willing to include it due to the land count it leaves people with.
Reap and Sow utility lands in this deck are very effective. The problem is that Thrun is trying to go so fast that the opponents utility lands often dont matter that much. Due to this I feel that Expedition Map and Sylvan Scrying handle the retrieval of utility lands better due to being cheaper and faster. Being faster means that they can be used to ramp into thrun where as this effect would come after he is in play which I am less impressed by. It does put the land into play but even with that I dont like it as much as the other two in this case.
Scapeshift I used this effect in the past and its not a bad effect. It can turn basic lands into utility lands but even then its slow to do that and even bringing in 3-4 utility lands in one shot I had a hard time justifying a card for what it did. I ended up in the end preferring the cheaper means to go get a single land effects as they seemed more versatile overall. If you find yourself always wanting all of your utility lands though or running really heavy on utility lands though this can be a nice effect.
Whirlwind its a one shot wrath flyers. That said generally speaking you are better off with a means to control flying over time than blowing them all up once. When it comes to flying commanders I would definitely rather a continuous way to fight them than a single kill.
Enlarge this is a nice combat trick for a temporary boost to damage as well as being able to potentially answer a creature. I tend to like Tower Above more than this effect as you get to pick who will block and the Wither means that you can kill indestructible. Still, these effects are still solid and its a very sizable buff that adds evasion as well. I tend to dislike one shot effects though in multiplayer but they tend to work out better in heads up where you only need to kill one person.
Overwhelming Stampede this is essentially a budget option replacement for Berserk. There is no reason to play this over Berserk other than for budget means. Since we can regenerate Thrun Berserk essentially costs GG1 assuming you want to save him at the end of it vs the 3GG here. Berserk also offers the option to cast it on someone elses creature though too which can be useful but considering how much of a fast aggro deck we are its unlikely that other players will be attacking each other or really attacking much at all while we have a board position. Its not a bad effect all in all but like I said, Berserk is better but I suppose you could always want to run both or be running this for budget reasons.
Plow Under its more of a 1v1 card but it really hurts a lot if it hits you. In the early game it sets your plans way back and in the late game its like you just miss two entire draw steps which also hurts. Due to the fact that it only hits one player though and its not completely devastating its more of a 1v1 tempo style card. I would encourage people who are playing 1v1 or small (3 player) FFA games to consider this more so than in 4+ player games.
Predatory Rampage this is another type of overrun effect. This one is interesting as its a psudo wrath effect as everything your opponents control must block so this can be used as a lure + buff effect. Its a one shot effect though so be careful as these effects are an easy way to run out of card advantage yourself.
Primal Command it can do a lot of different things which is very useful. I still find it incredibly clunky for its mana but it has a very large variety of uses on it and in general I need to be able to pick Thrun out of the deck if he gets tucked. Its a clunky card but it does a lot of different things and picks Thrun out of the deck as well.
Restock its recovery and it generates card advantage. Due to how fast Thrun tries to operate though I have had a hard time with recovery effects. They really only work after a wrath goes off or someone smashes up a bunch of things. You are better off with card draw than recovery in my opinion due to this.
Soul's Majesty It is a Thrun dependent card draw. That said we tend to make Thrun really crazy big so it can draw a TON of cards really easy with these effects. Don't be surprised when these effects end up being something like draw 6-10+ cards for 5 mana with no drawbacks.
Stunted Growth similarly to Plow Under, this card is designed a lot more for 1v1 games or small multiplayer games. The more opponents you play against the worse it will become. I would not suggest using these effects if your normal games are 4+ people.
Desert Twister it answers any permanent but it does so very slowly. Six mana to destroy something is really painful to cast and there are sort of better options these days. If you really want one of these effects I usually recommend Karn Liberated (it exiles and can be used multiple times potentially) and Spine of Spine of Ish Sah (if it dies in an artifact wrath you get it back. You might even burn a Naturalize effect too to recover it if need be) before you consider the Twister.
Rain of Thorns I love how many things it can destroy but sadly for its mana and speed it still feels sort of sluggish. I generally speaking answered an artifact or an enchantment and took out a land because I could. Utility lands arent that big of a worry in here though and so I was mostly getting an artifact or enchantment for 6 mana at sorcery speed. It just couldn't make the cut for me. If it cost like probably 2 less I would consider it but it would probably be too powerful at that point.
Revenge of the Hunted Its a large one time buff plus serves as removal. I like this card but in the end I replaced it for an ongoing pump effect. I still like this effect though and out of the lure effects its one of my favorite as it gave a nice size buff + trample to thrun still. Its good but temporary buffs can run you out of steam somewhat easily.
Tooth and Nail If you run a few more creatures and higher mana creatures at that this becomes an interesting option. I dont really run anything too crazy to make it useful but you could potentially set up some really big gamebreaking moves. Generally speaking though in my opinion you really need to set up your deck appropriately to make this card good. Its really sub-par in my list as it stands now.
Praetor's Counsel it can be fun but my issue with it is that its a mid game - late game type of card. You never want this in the early game and until you essentially get wrathed off the board its not going to do much of anything. It is also dependent on graveyard hate and counterspells. People really hate it when this goes off so it draws a lot of attention.
Garruk, Primal Hunter for the most part I use him as a second Soul's Majesty but seeing as he costs the same mana and does the same thing at the same speed with additional options of how to be used, this guy packs a lot of power for a planeswalker. He is mostly Thrun dependent for the draw but you can always drop him in and start making beasts / enchant / equip a beast and draw cards as well. I am really hesitant to drop him in when I have Thrun and do something other than his -3 because he tends to draw a lot of hate very quickly so trying to abuse him draws a lot of attention and potentially you might only end up with a beast from him.
Karn Liberated Karn opens us up to some nice removal. This is one of the few ways to remove indestructible targets for the deck with Duplicant being the other option. He can theoretically be reusable however its hard to really defend him in this deck. Generally speaking I drop him and expect him to die immediately after using his -3 ability once. If you arent ok with that you might consider running some fogs or token spawning because he is really hard to defend otherwise.
Ancient Tomb It ramps us into a turn 3 Thrun. I also fetch into it early on from Expedition Map or Sylvan Scrying if you have no other ramp in your opening hand. Faster Thrun is always a good and worthy cause. The life loss to this is minimal enough that I dont mind it. Later on you can keep it up as one of the lands you save to try to regenerate thrun to minimize life loss unnecessarily.
Buried Ruin It can recover some of our valuable equipment. It is a land and gives us mana too but we really dont need a ton of land so later on its usually worth cycling an equipment back up for use over having another land. Its utility option isnt something that is useful until later in the game though usually.
Cathedral of War this is an ETB tapped land which is annoying but it also gives thrun the option to pump additionally which is really useful. I often find myself copying this if possible with things like Thespian's Stage. The fact that it comes in tapped can usually be played arround by playing it on a turn before thrun that you have nothing to do or playing it after Thrun comes in. The only time its really a problem is if you are topdecking for lands and it happens to be the one you get when you need your mana to cast things.
Dryad Arbor there is some decent merrit behind running the arbor as a land in a Thrun deck. 1) GSZ for 0 means you can ramp into a faster thrun. You could also GSZ for 1 and get something like a 1 mana dork or whatever but either way it takes up a slot that we currently dont run. 2) Some people run Edict effects and having random cump guys to sac to these is useful in dodging these. 3) you would then have an option to run fetchlands and fetch into a creature as an option later on. Overall, I don't think the advantages are necessarily worth the fact that it dies in wraths and has summoning sickness though. There are metas where this might be something well worth considering though.
Glacial Chasm this is a really cool utility land if you have a heavy land recursion package. Combined with Crucible of Worlds and or Life from the Loam it can be extremely annoying to opposing aggro decks. We have a decent amount of utility land tutors as well currently but I think my favorite to fetch this would definitely be to cast Crop Rotation into it as someone were attacking you and nullify their attack. All that said, this is a temporary stall on a land that doesn't tap for mana (without Urborg) and costs resources to keep up and keeps you from attacking while its in play. To play it right would be to fetch it into play as you need it and let it drop and recur it each turn after you attack out. It definitely needs a little bit of a package to support it but its a nice option if you were looking at some fog package options.
High Market this serves as a sacrifice outlet. The biggest thing this serves for this deck is an easy way to drop Thrun out of a tuck wrath. We often push to keep 1G up to regenerate Thrun so this can serve as the 1 we keep up and have the option to sac him in response to it.
Inkmoth Nexus some people like to have an alternate wincon. Considering poison kills at 10, we could easily animate this land and drop some equipment / auras on this to quickly kill someone. I see a lot of nonbasic land hate and Tower of the Magistrates in my meta though so I worry a bit about it but it also gives me a creature to sac to edict effects and if you really need to punch someone for potentially lethal it seems like a good option to have around.
Khalni Garden it gives a token which can help against Edict effects. It still taps for green as well so you really only have to manage the ETB tapped part of it and so long as you don't have to drop it the turn you are trying to drop Thrun its usually manageable.
Llanowar Reborn its an ETB tapped land that taps for green. It does however give Thrun an option to start with a +1/+1 counter on him though. The big killer for me here though is that it needs to be in play before Thrun or he will have to die and be recast after this comes in. Its not half bad though and still taps for green which is nice. It mostly comes down to the fact that it has an ETB tapped and if your meta runs Back to Basics / Ruination / Blood Moon effects to determine if you dont want to run it. If you see any sort of nonbasic land hate in your meta I would probably cut this one because its advantage is incredibly small and narrow.
Mosswort Bridge this can be a nice source of card advantage. What is nice about it is that it has a nice way to generate some card advantage and cheaply cast something later. The more you focus on buffing Thrun the better it gets so if you are more in the control or disruption areas you might not find as good of results from it. I like that it has a way to cheaply cast the spell behind it and we can do it at instant speed once the conditions have been met meaning we can be in combat and flash out an extra aura for a surprise buff.
Mouth of Ronom its really really hard to come across good creature removal in green so I am actually really happy to have the chance to fling a land for 4 damage in this deck. Also, don't forget that you can use this as 4 additional trample damage when attacking as you can fling this for damage at a blocking creature and you will start trampling 4 damage sooner with Thrun. We don't really need tons of land in this deck so cannibalizing a few for useful effects isn't that worrisome.
Mystifying Maze being that we are one of the faster decks at most tables I usually don't find myself using this much at all. However, with the fact that we have the nonbasic land tutors I like having the option to use this if need be. Having a maze can be a lifesaver so I keep it around even though it is expensive to use and it is sort of situational as to when we are the ones who need the maze.
Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers its another small utility buff option. I don't use it unless I don't have much else I am doing in a turn as well as two mana for doing one more damage for a turn isn't that incredible but it has its moments. It taps for green still and comes in untapped so the downside behind running it is incredibly small and mostly limited to nonbasic land hate effects.
Petrified Field if you find yourself really wanting a specific utility land all the time and or opponents are blowing up a specific utility land of yours a lot this gives you another recovery option to bring back those important utility lands for you. It sort of depends on how heavily you always want a utility land though as to how playable this is though I think.
Reliquary Tower with some effects like Soul's Magesty you can draw a crazy amount of cards. Generally speaking there are almost never more than 7 cards in my hand I want to keep though so I am not too worried about discarding at end of turn but if you love having a huge hand its an optional land to run.
Rogue's Passage generally speaking I try to push trample on a lot of the buffs I run but there are a strong buffs that lack evasion that I run as well. The passage is not cheap by any means but it can push Thrun through for damage. I have on occasion as well run into people clogging up their board with blockers so even with trample I cant get through. In situations like these you occasionally need to just go unblockable.
Strip Mine very rarely do I find myself needing to remove opponents lands with how fast I try to be but even with that I still run one land based out for opposing utility lands. Keep in mind that we have a few nonbasic land tutors so I can go get it if I need it.
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale alright, I realize most people will not have this. I happened to own one so I run it because this is a creature light strategy that has some issues with token swarm decks since I cant really wrath them very easily. I find that tokens are the big place that tabernacle hits but you can also hurt people when using land disruption tactics. Don't worry too much if you aren't going to get a copy of this as it was just a nice add for the deck more than a core concept or anything.
Thespian's Stage we have a few really nice utility lands that are also nice to have extra copies of. I find this to be a versatile utility land at the very least. If you don't have enough green you can turn it into a forest before you hit the 4th mana and could drop Thrun anyways. After Thrun is in play my favorite thing to copy is usually Cathedral of War as its more free buffing but I also use it to sort of clone utility lands that someone might be trying to kill in response.
Tower of the Magistrate I like being able to forcibly make people drop their equipment. It is cheap to use as well so you can keep it as one of the 1G to regenerate Thrun and activate it as an alternative to Thrun's regenerate. The more you see people use equipment in your meta the better this will become. Remember that you can always use this in response to Lighting Greaves equip and forcibly keep them off of their haste and or shroud. I dislike swords that give protection from green personally as blockers with this can be extremely annoying. It also forces the indestructibility equipments off of creatures so Thrun can run them over rather than encountering them turn after turn.
Treetop Village another land that gives me options when it comes to edict effects. It also has built in trample and it animates for the G1 that we try to keep up for Thrun which is useful. I likely wouldn't bother swinging out with it unless something happened to Thrun though. It can eat small utility guys who come your way though which is nice.
Vesuva another option to copy land. I don't like that it comes in as a copy though and cant change as it means we need good utility lands before we get this. I think Thespian's Stage is a bit more versatile due to this. The one really big advantage that this land has to Thespian's Stage though is that it can copy ETB land effects such as Bojuka Bog.
Change Log
9/24/2012
Sudden Strength -> Staff of Nin Sudden Strength is a temporary pump and very small. I just wasn't finding the buff substantial enough for the long term. Staff gives me card draw and it removes some chump creatures. I can start trampling once lethal damage has been established so its even a slight buff once I am trampling.
Forest -> Mystifying Maze another control option. The ability to maze out opposing voltron commanders is useful to have. This can even just mean taking less damage because people see a maze untapped.
9/24/2012 CUTS:
Wolfir Silverheart - he is sort of fragile as a buff. I think I will go elsewhere.
Grafdigger's Cage - seems very conditional and I need to get it in before my opponents abuse stuff. Ehhhh probably going to cut it for something more proactive for now.
Null Rod - dropping the artifact hate package for other options.
Damping Matrix - dropping the artifact hate package for other options.
Vow of Wildness - I thought it might be cool due to its dual options however I will probably go without as I dont play against that many voltron decks.
Predatory Rampage - if it added trample as well then I would be happy. Its an interesting card but I dont know how often I want to force people to block thrun.
Provoke - it might just be a little too cute. I like how I could force opponents to block during other player's attacks as well which is amusing and it draws me a card. I dont know how often I really want to force someone to block thrun though... It seems like a card that when everything is going well it might just be ok.
Hornet Queen - solid control like creature. It gives me some flying defense and takes a wrath / counterspell to stop it for the most part.
Loxodon Warhammer - more trample. This also gives me some lifegain options to stall vs the agro decks.
Master of the Wild Hunt - removal options. It doesnt require me to force opponents to block thrun and he sort of becomes his own little problem on his own which I like.
Reliquary Tower - This deck seems like it could draw a lot of cards... it seems possibly worth having one of these handy.
9/29/2012
Gaea's Blessing -> Scavenging Ooze the one card draw is nice but not as nice as the ability to pop it off at instant speed and answer the problem entirely. The ooze gives me an additional optional beater and the lifegain / increasing size seems like a nice option as well. I want to stay away from eating my own graveyard here if I can avoid it since I run some recursion of my own.
Berserk -> Forgotten Ancient ok I had one situation where this was really cool but man I kept seeing it in opening hands and its usually bad. I had one time though where thrun was a 7 power and I used this, regrowthed it, and used it again making him a whopping 28 power trampling monster lol. Still.... I keep seeing it way too often and its really only something I want when I push for the last kill. The ancient powers himself up all on his own. He can power thrun up extremely fast, be a beater himself, and make other creatures threats. He seems like he would work great with the fight mechanics in this deck as well. It is surprising if the ancient doesn't pick up at least 3-4 counters in a rotation and if he gets more than that then super. The downside here is that he is sort of a high target creature. He is vulnerable to wraths and spot removal and takes time to work. Sometimes you have to take risks for big rewards though especially in mono color.
Hornet Queen -> Avenger of Zendikar I ended up not liking the queen nearly as much as I thought I would. Thrun is usually a faster threat than other aggro decks. If I have trouble with flyers in general then that is the player I usually focus first and put them on the defensive. This is just too defensive in my opinion and I didn't really want her when I got her. Avenger gives me some more offensive options other than just thrun to go offensive with. I dont particularly like him but he does make a big wave of scarey that will be nice with the recursion options in here.
Wall of Blossoms -> Restock its a cool card and it cantrips however I just don't have ways to abuse this in here. Also I don't really need the early blocks here as I am racing people well to the point that they usually go defensive from me rather than me needing to defend myself. Restock feels a little heavy at 5 mana but it adds a bit more recovery as my card draw can be a bit hard to come by.
Forest -> High Market grabbing an easy sac outlet. The tuck wraths seem to be problematic so I want to see if this helps out. Obviously going too high on the colorless count can be a problem but only if I get like 3 of them in an opening hand. So hopefully it wont be too much of a problem.
Forest -> Buried Ruin some extra recursion. Again the colorless isn't too much of a problem assuming I dont get too much of this right away. We will see how it goes.
10/19/2012
CUTS:
Triumph of Ferocity Its sort of slow draw. Its very situational if you will draw anything as well and most people are trying to kill thrun so its tough to rely on this sort of slow effect.
Sylvan Scrying I dont know if I have found the land tutor as impressive as I had hoped for originally. Arena is nice and all but it not tapping for mana has been a problem. We have lots of other control in the deck and I just dont know how impressed I have been with the land tutor in here.
Mind's Eye mana intensive and slow. I have found several of the other green power draw effects to just be so much more explosive.
Avenger of Zendikar - I continue to be unimpressed with him. I even Chord of Callinged into him at instant speed at the end of one of my opponents turn just to have him eat a Swords to Plowshares in response to his tokens. I have yet to turn the tokens sideways for any profit here and I think I have tutored him up like 3 times now... my meta is very heavy on wraths and creature control.
Gigantiform Gigantiform has felt a little clunky. Its expensive and paying 6 mana for a 4 power buff hasn't quite felt good enough. I decided in the end it wasn't good enough for a slot at that mana.
Rain of Thorns It seems like it never really works out. Its too slow and it cant double target one card type. I had it in hand vs like 3 artifacts I wanted to smash the other day with no enchantments or utility lands in play so I was really disappointing in its results there. It feels too slow and expensive personally.
ADDS:
Power Matrix This seems like all sort of abilities I want regularly on Thrun. Flying + trample means he can avoid a ton of stuff and it doesn't have an equip cost so putting it on is super easy to do. Its not an enchant either so it doesn't fall off randomly. The power bump is really small but the evasions + not being an aura are definitely bonuses.
Blanchwood Armor HUGE buff. I am hoping I run enough trample to back this working out but considering its likely to come down even early game as like a +4/+4 the turn after thrun hits at a minimum seems really nice. Late in the game this could easily be more explosive than Berserk.
Mind Stone I keep weighing how much I want to go with fast ramp as I have tons of options to go with. The upside to this one is that I can cannibalize it for a card draw later if it comes to that. Being an artifact is a downside and that it taps for colorless is also a pain. However the option to eat it for a card keeps it as a stone I still generally like having. Ill give it a shot here.
Infiltration Lens I keep grabbing trample because thrun keeps getting chumped. Even with trample he still gets chumped a lot to reduce his damage. This lets me power out some draw from his blockers which seems nice. This might also be about as good as trample as it makes people think twice about giving me cards.
Strata Scythe - HUGE Buff. This one looks at all lands of that type and being in a mono colored deck means that this is gonna be a big buff. Green is very popular in EDH too so the chance of this being like a +10/+10 by turn 5 or so seems easy to happen.
Spidery Grasp - This gives another solid anti flying card. Untap thrun, and swatting down a threat seems good to have. I can also use this while going offensive for a surprise extra trample option. This feels like a good versatile answer for a green control deck.
11/7/2012
Wildsize -> Tower Above I like the surprise factor of Wildsize however Tower Above gives me options on how my opponent might block. Generally everyone is sort of wary of Thrun anyways due to my Epic Proportions shenanigans. I had considered using something like Predatory Rampage which would be better against tokens however the fact is that Tower Above gives me a large buff, trample, and block control all in one. It has synergy with most all of my draw outlets as well due to that so I like everything it does in one card.
Spike Weaver -> Tangle I really didn't like that the weaver would just sit out in the open for removal. Part of the great thing about thrun is that he is hard to target but having my defenses easily targeted sucks. I am just about always happier to have my fogs in hand than in play so I am swapping to Tangle which is still quite powerful.
Spidery Grasp -> Umezawa's Jitte This deck is sort of scarey to defend against so I have found that a lot of people dont like swinging at me until they are swinging really hard. Due to this I have found the Grasp a bit less impressive. Jitte on the other hand gives me great control which I am always looking for and the option of pumping thrun as well.
Restock -> Mask of Memory Most of the time I just feel like Restock takes up my entire turn. Due to this I decided to keep the cheaper regrowths and the more powerful Praetor's Counsel and cut the middle of the pack regrowth. Mask seems like it should work really well in with my trample aggro strategy.
11/15/2012
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood -> Cathedral of War Oran-Rief is hard to use as it costs extra mana when casting thrun. Due to that I haven't really seen much use for it so far. The cathedral still taps for mana but doesn't require slowing down or paying more for thrun to get him bigger.
Terrain Generator -> Ancient Tomb I realized the Generator wasn't ramping me properly lol. It was a bit of an oversight but it takes 3 to throw an extra land out which makes me ramping at the wrong time with it. The tomb on the other hand speeds me up a turn which is nice.
Winding Canyons -> Rogue's Passage I dont usually have to recast thrun a lot and I dont run much for other creatures so the canyons hasn't been that great. Unblockable on a land that still taps for mana on the other hand seems like great utility.
Oracle of Mul Daya -> Ancient Stirrings Oracle gives some card advantage in the fact that I draw less lands but it doesnt really ramp me appropriately for thrun. I have a lot of other advantage in the deck as well so I decided that giving away all of my draws for land wasn't as good here. I like the Ancient Stirrings as I have a lot of colorless targets as well as the option to always get a land out of it. Most of my fun artifacts are fun little toys and the ability to sort of dig at them seems like a nice option.
Blanchwood Armor -> Icy Manipulator I dont actually know if this one is going to stick but I am bringing it in to try it out. These effects give me options to defend myself from other creatures or remove blockers from my way. I like the balance of Icy considering it can target a lot of things and cheaply activates.
12/3/2012
Loxodon Warhammer -> Riding the Dilu Horse the warhammer has been sort of bad if I ramp into thrun. If I am slow playing him on turn 4 its not a problem but when I get a turn 2-3 thrun it means that warhammer either comes down and equips over two turns or waits until 6 mana to happen. The Dilu Horse is really cool as its sort of like a counter or something where it doesn't leave anything behind and it gives me a 6/6 unblockable commander.
Forgotten Ancient -> Spore Cloud I have had a hard time with the ancient for long enough that I am just going to cut him. He is cool if he sticks but hes a lightning rod. The value he gives is entirely questionable as well as its up to my opponents to cast things and get some counters on him which was sort of meh when I got 1 counter in a turn rotation last time I played him... everyone had abilities and other things to do apparently. I like the random crazy fogs that give me some time to recover. The cloud can be used when other people are attacking elsewhere too. The tapping down blockers and keeping them tapped seems sweet.
Ancient Stirrings -> Triangle of War ohhhhh snap another fight card lol. I seriously love spot removal in green and I didn't even know about the triangle till I randomly came across it earlier today. Ancient Stirrings has been very random in my testing of late. I tested 10 hands and about half of them didn't have anything but a land option. It was a bit too hard to use for my own likes.
Strata Scythe -> Eldrazi Conscription one of my biggest issues with the scythe is the lack of trample. It gives a big buff but I figure the conscription gives about the same size buff for similar mana to drop + equip while giving trample and the annihilate 2 is a nice bonus.
12/27/2012
Triangle of War -> Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary fighting is highly dependent on thrun sticking and being pumped. I like the idea of Rofellos which in my opinion is the best doubler option for thrun considering it ramps him out quickly and improves the creature toolbox. The triangle is cool but I dont know if I need as much as I was running. If the list was a bit more for 1v1 I think I would be a bit more behind it but I find it sort of difficult to use in MP as is. It might make its way back in but for now I wanted to make room for Rofellos.
Mystic Melting -> Mind's Eye The melt was the worst of my noncreature removal. I decided I liked card draw more as well and something not dependent on thrun seems useful.
12/30/2012
Arena -> The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale well... I own a tabernacle (which I dont have a home for) so I suppose this isn't as big of a deal to me. I was having some issues with Arena and the fact that most people had chumps to throw off to it whereas Tabernacle busts on players with a bunch of creatures. Tokens are a problem for this deck so it seems legit. Yet another reason I am wanting Scapeshift more and more in here. I will have to find room for it soon.
1/4/2013
Nevinyrral's Disk -> Scapeshift the disk has been a bit slow in general and it sucks when it gets blown up after dropping it. With the addition of Tabernacle... I think Scapeshift can actually give me some good solid creature control now. I have been complaining that I should add this for long enough to finally go get one... I dont really get how regular Scapeshift is like $10.00 but a foil one is like $13.00 but whatever.
1/6/2013
Praetor's Counsel -> Winter Orb this lowers my curve a lot as well as probably just being a better card. I had issues with Praetor's Counsel being easy to disrupt in a lot of ways and being very conditional. Even if it resolved, it still had a lot of uncertainties as to how effective it would be. I think Winter Orb will give me a much better situational card that can help me punish the greedy land ramp high curve decks. Worst case it should probably buy me a few turns to smash face with thrun... I hope.
Rampant Growth -> Moss Diamond with the above change I might want a few colored stones. I figured this was about an equal swap here other than artifact sweepers being a bit more common. Still, if I am jacking with the lands in a few ways now I like having a few stones to tap for colored mana.
Mind Stone -> Coldsteel Heart the big difference being that coldsteel comes in tapped which is unfortunate however I think having colored mana off of it can be useful. I rarely ever used the sacrifice for a card option of the stone anyways. I am adding a bit more to screw with lands so I want some colored stones in here.
1 Forest -> Mouth of Ronom I like that this gives me a land version of a control card in here. Also, with trample I only need to assign enough to kill before I trample over so even just putting 4 damage on a creature means I can trample over sooner and hit harder. I like the options here.
Akroma's Memorial -> Skarrg Goliath memorial is best for haste and alpha striking with things. Unfortunately Thrun gets there over time and needs big buffs. Its cool in theory but its sort of a scarey card so I cant just drop it in and use it as a nice buff over several turns as people hate on it. For now I think I am going to try to move away from it and see what sort of results I get. There was a problem with the fact that it gave only evasions and no pump to thrun. The new Goliath gives a stupid big one time buff for the same mana. I look forward to seeing if I cant just axe murder someone with it. Unfortunately its never going to be a one hit kill sort of deal but its still super cool and its uncounterable and doesn't die to naturalize which is nice.
Power Matrix -> Worldly Tutor The matrix is good evasion however it doesnt buff much. I wanted to try to bump up my creature tutor package as well since now with Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary and or Sakura-Tribe Elder in the list this could ramp me into a faster Thrun with this tutor. Later in the game I could go get the Skarrg Goliath that I am bringing in with this change as well. It helps me against tuck sweepers as well as I can go get Thrun.
Spore Cloud -> Ohran Viper I have actually seen too many fogs now before in this list. I think they are best sparsely scattered and at the point that I can always bluff having one at two mana. The viper gives me a deathtouch creature to block or attack out with and the draw on him seems very solid. I like that he is cheap as well so he should be easy to multi task.
1/19/2013
Buried Ruin -> Tower of the Magistrate to be honest... I am a bit curious if I could just add it over a forest but I am a bit afraid to add too many colorless lands. I still need to hit my GG by 4 mana. I haven't liked the utility of the ruin as much though since its a one and done effect. Its still good but I wanted the re-usability of Tower where I can hate on equipment and such :p. I need to play with things though as there's a chance I might just run both of them and cut further into my forest count. Also, I love how tower's ability costs two so it gives me another option of things I can do with my 2 mana I like keeping up in here.
Icy Manipulator -> Sylvan Scrying Icy has its moments but it seemed to be largely hit and miss based upon what I was facing. The other day I was dying to a Niv Mizzet 2.0 deck and I had it in hand like wtf is this going to do lol. As it is mono green though I needed to sort of test it in a lot of situations and its hard to reliably see it. Sadly though, it was just too often that it wasn't what I wanted to be doing. Sylvan Scrying can actually ramp me into a fast thrun thanks to Ancient Tomb in the list and has a lot of mid - late game uses thanks to my diverse utility land package.
1/28/2013
Momentous Fall -> Thespian's Stage I have been having issues with Momentous Fall in the fact that its sort of expensive for me to keep up as an option. I dont really like dropping Thrun unless its an emergency situation so due to that I think I am more ok with keeping Greater Good for the moment. I have noticed that I could use probably another land or two as it screws up my land drops occasionally. I like the Stage in the fact that it can fix into green in the early if its a problem or it can go utility for me. It comes in untapped as well so.... it sounds good to me.
1/29/2013
Vedalken Orrery -> Increasing Savagery the Orrery has been not working as well as I had hoped it to. I decided instead to increase my Thrun buffs. It could be the wrong move but I have been meaning to try out the Savagery as I like how it doesn't leave extra targets to blow up on the field and I love that the flashback is an enormous buff. It is cheap to cast it too so it seems like it could be worth playing around with.
Gaea's Embrace -> Vow of Wildness more versatility and its cheaper to cast. I never really noticed much of a change moving my regen from 1G to G either.
2/15/2013
Greater Good -> City of Solitude I wont lie, I am a little concerned about loosing the option to regen Thrun when this is in play but it just shuts opponents out of shinanigans so well. Currently the only big things this hurts us with is 1) Thrun regen 2) fighting 3) fogs. It does hurt us a bit but other than the fogs, thrun doesn't actually need to regen very often and you can still regen from combat damage with this in play. Fighting can still be done on our turn as well leaving only the fogs as really dead cards while this is in play. Greater Good was just too situational for me for when things were going bad and it took a lot of mana to get into play while I was usually trying to set up Thrun all beefy like.
Moment's Peace -> Hall of Gemstone my playgroup had made some adjustments for my fogging. I still really love fogs but I have a few less decks currently that fogs are good against. We are slowly creeping into more and more combo in our meta sadly. The hall has shut out a few multicolored decks already in some of my preliminary testing. It screws with me a little but potentially just haymakers some control decks and multicolored decks. Also as a side note, color producing mana stones and critters get a lot better with this too so I might consider trying to go even further on them if possible.
4/3/2013
Slice in Twain -> Nature's Claim I have been thinking about this for some time and more recently the draw a card has become a little less needed in here. I decided that four mana just felt really heavy for what it did so I am moving to the claim. I really love that draw a card on it but the cheap removal is probably more effective here.
4/9/13
Increasing Savagery -> Sword of Feast and Famine originally I didn't run this sword because I didn't need the untap as much. Now I am running more land deprive tactics and the evasions + pump are still really good. This keeps my pump count at the same number but this pump gives evasion and interacts well with some of my disruption that has been added.
City of Solitude -> Nature's Wrath the city was to screw over some of the instant speed shenanigans but its become less of an issue in some means but I think Nature's Wrath hits opponents better. Plus it really screws some of the three color decks over which I love. When used with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth its really cool too.
Tangle -> Awakening Zone this can give me chump blockers but it also helps through resource denial, vs sac effects, and helps ramp. Fogs sadly have to be horded all game and are very situational as to if they will get me out of anything.
Primal Command -> Living Plane the command had been giving me issues and with its high mana cost plus the fact that I am moving more towards disruption it makes it even more challenging to keep in my list. Living Plane primarily works in my list with Tabernacle to gum things up. I have a lot of land searching though so it seems nice with that. It could potentially also work with Revenge of the Hunted to blow someone's lands up hard.
Constant Mists -> Expedition Map cutting out another fog effect which have just been really situational and cards I tend to have to sit on for a long time for a land fetch. This can ramp me into a faster Thrun potentially or help me set up some of my nice utility lands.
Rogue's Passage -> Petrified Field gives me a nice land retrieval in land forum. I have a lot of land searching so this keeps some of my nice legend lands from getting popped off to easily. Overall I really dont use the Passage much as its really expensive to do so and its rare that Thrun is punching hard without trample anyways.
5/18/13
Nature's Wrath -> Increasing Savagery I am going to take another crack at the savagery. I had it in my list before but very shortly. I dislike that it lacks evasion but it has options to absolutely wreck someone with the flashback and it gives a huge buff for little mana. Its sort of one of those buffs you want another buff to work with otherwise you hope to just get setup quick with it and beat face before others are established. I had some issues with Nature's Wrath that it was situational and even if I did get it set up properly it was sometimes too late. I got it set up against a GU player and a mono B player one game but the GU player already had like 15+ lands and it hardly even affected him. In this sense I need to try to get it set up pre-emptively on them which is hard to really do with an enchantment.
Living Plane -> O-Naginata Living Plane just had too many situational things riding on it. I really didn't want it without my Tabernacle so I think its just too situational all in all. I really wanted to get it set up though sometime and I do have tons of nonbasic land tutors but even then, its just not what I need to be focusing on in here. I needed more buff effects and I had been meaning to play O-Naginata for some time now. It seems like a lot of things I like seeing on a buff for Thrun.
6/28/13
Sword of Feast and Famine -> Fireshrieker I wasn't running much for green auras before but I am coming back to running more so I probably do need to get rid of the sword. In a deck with less buffs and less green auras it wasn't a problem but I need to be able to cast spells on thrun. The double strike has panned out very nicely so far. I ended up killing someone on turn 4 with it in the case of a turn 2 thrun game. I from there dropped Increasing Savagery followed by Fireshrieker and just took him out.
Staff of Nin -> Memory Jar the staff has just felt slow and clunky. I want to try a different direction and see how it goes. I like how the jar gets a lot of results quickly and for some reason it doesn't end up dying very often at all on me which I like.
Scapeshift -> Mythic Proportions After a while I decided that I didn't much like Scapeshift. It was cool in the beginning but I find that Expedition Map and Sylvan Scrying which I also run are more versatile in the fact that they can ramp my start and replace themselves. Scapeshift seems better designed for decks like Valukut and such decks. It costs sort of a lot to use and there aren't TONS of utility lands I always want from it. The Proportions gives me another big finisher effect which I don't always like but when a game drags on longer I need some bigger punch buff effects.
Revenge of the Hunted -> Blanchwood Armor the revenge was a really cool card but being that it is a one turn effect I am trying to turn to more continuous buffs if I can. Blanchwood is another really solid size buff but it worries me to be adding so many buffs that lack evasion.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth -> Rogue's Passage As I lost some of my resource deprival stuff I am also going to cut Urborg. Right now all it does is let Tabernacle tap for mana which is amusing but not enough to keep it in the list. The passage becomes more important again with some of my buffs not adding evasion.
7/1/13
Tower Above -> Berserk I really enjoy Tower Above but I am really interested in how Berserk might play since finding out that it was not a sacrifice but destroy effect on it. So now instead of trying to kill a creature I might try to kill a player which sounds like a lot more fun. We will see how it goes though.
Petrified Field -> Buried Ruin I brought the Field in when trying to push more land disruption especially through Tabernacle. Now that I scaled back on that though I think I would rather have the Ruin back in the list.
Forest -> Mosswort Bridge With the increase in buffs for Thrun I want to see if Bridge will work for me more consistently. It has an ETB tapped effect which annoys me but I think I can get over that. The idea of potentially flashing in a game breaking buff on Thrun mid combat for 2 mana seems useful and with the increase in buffs I think I can more realistically have him big enough to do this more often.
7/18/13
Mosswort Bridge -> Treetop Village from the get go, I knew that the Bridge was a winmore land. Still, I wanted to play around with it. In the end I think a land to sac to Edict is more effective. The bridge is only good when I am already doing well so meh.
Mystifying Maze -> Inkmoth Nexus Maze is very very rarely useful for me in here. I am generally one of the more aggressive decks and if I am trying to defend myself with a Maze then something has probably already gone wrong. I can use the Inkmoth as a secondary wincon that can carry equipment and auras if need be. It also animates for cheap to eat an Edict if need be. I also contemplated possibly cutting Tower of the Magistrate instead here but I have used it on several occasions to make a creature drop a Sword of Feast and Famine that was trying to block me. In the end the Maze was strictly defensive and I felt I could do better in this deck.
Forest -> Khalni Garden this takes out another basic but it does tap for green so I am not too concerned. It does ETB tapped but it helps against edict as it gives me a free dude.
Master of the Wild Hunt -> Primal Command Master has been on the chopping block for a while. Due to Thrun having hexproof I tend to draw a lot of attention to any other creatures I drop. Master drops at an odd time so even in an opening hand I didn't like when he dropped so I was forced to play him later or after I needed to be able to fight something. He just wasn't very good at sticking around and not very good at when he would drop into play. It feels sort of odd to be bringing the Command back again as I have had it before. In the end though I just felt like having one more means of recovering Thrun would be useful and it has a large set of options on how to use it. Sometimes with my Thrun recover cards the best option is to get the most versatility in what they do rather than making them cheap and efficient as I tend to burn those cards off being greedy.
11/7/2013
Strip Mine -> Opal Palace generally speaking, I dont really have to worry about utility lands as nobody can maze my commander. Things like coffers dont tend to matter because by the time it taps for any real mana, opponents will have already died to or answered me probably.
1/24/2014
Ohran Viper -> Hunter's Prowess swapping draw for draw. Viper is cool but it was me just trying to pack some more draw into the deck and I feel like Hunter's Prowess just does that to a much better scale. The viper is incredibly slow to try to get me card advantage and if I have any sort of a good start its not something I can be doing until Thrun is already in play so it makes it sort of an awkward drop.
2/11/2014
Memory Jar -> Storm Cauldron the cauldron gives me additional ways to screw with lands and I think it makes people second guess using their lands more than the untap effects do. It is also less dependent on my opponents being heavily tapped when I drop it into play. The draw from the jar has been awkward and being that I am not much of a ramp deck it has at times been awkward when hitting a new hand. I prefer to have a more sustained draw as if I am running out of things to do in hand it doesn't really help me as much as I might like it to.
7/15/2014
Static Orb -> Avarice Amulet of the land disruption / stasis effects it seems the least useful to me. I feel at a slight disadvantage in the fact that I always need to untap Thrun so its a bit more limiting than say Winter Orb in that sense. I want to try out the amulet and see what I think of it. The amulet is interesting because assuming we are strapping it to thrun, we wont ever hit the death trigger clause. Getting vigilance, power, and draw all in one is a good combination for thrun as it gives him some mid game sustainability. My biggest concern offhand is just that the amulet is 6 mana to drop and equip where as sweet spot is sort of 5 or less so I can suit it up right behind dropping Thrun. If it were a 3 to drop and 3 to equip it might possibly even be stronger here just because I would be able to stagger it better but being a 4 drop makes it for sure after Thrun is in but a bad follow up turn to just drop and not suit up.
Awakening Zone -> Recycle I haven't been seeing as many edict effects and I have wanted to get some testing in with Recycle for this list. I have been running Null Profusion to great results in my Toshiro so I want to see what I might be able to do with it here. Awakening Zone has some benefit while running resource denial but I think I want to lighten up on that slightly as it stands and with seeing a few less edicts of late I feel that I don't need the zone right now.
Acidic Slime -> Reclamation Sage I more or less don't need to spot remove lands in here because the lands I would normally worry about in a voltron deck cannot target Thrun so it seems like I can save myself 2 mana for just deathtouch here. This makes it easier to multi task or keep up mana for thrun to regen.
Vow of Wildness -> Primeval Bounty just sort of moving some buffs around. I am a little worried about the bounty because I think its a much bigger removal target and it has less immediate impact but has the potential to generate a lot more value which I like. Vow of Wildness has always been just sort of an ok buff for me.
You might be right that pushing for a turn 2/3 thrun might be really important here.
How.... did I forget about Mana Crypt..... fail lol (probably cus I dont own one but still)
Desert Twister / Spine of Ish Sah always felt too slow and clunky for me. I will roll with Karn but thats because he can potentially get more than one. I have a harder time seeing these getting repeat use.
Master of the Wild Hunt is an interesting option. I originally avoided adding all that many creatures as I wanted to punish creature control decks some. He is some removal options on his own and seems like a good answer to utility and ETB creatures. I will see how he rolls.
Exploration / Burgeoning I suppose this comes down as a question of how hard do we want to push the early thrun. I am all for adding a bit more ramp to the deck but I purposely tried to keep my curve somewhat low so I dont know about these as much... I dont really want to go too far to push for an early thrun as he still takes a while to kill someone unless we also get one of the big buff effects.
Sensei's Divining Top - I never really like it as much without a bunch of shuffle effects to clear out the topdeck. I just dont think I will have as many shuffles as I would want to run this.
Life from the Loam / Crucible of Worlds I have to ask, do you run in a MLD meta or do you plan on using these to fill your graveyard and gain some advantage? I have never been that interested in Loam in the past.
Creeping Renaissance I dont like how much this costs and how spread out we seem to be for it... What are your thoughts here? Do you plan on just picking up like 2 cards at a time with it? I considered it originally but discarded it due to how spread out I am.
Hornet Queen - I might actually pack her because I like how defensive she is. She doesn't demand that I be wrathed but it is sort of some of the stall I seem to be missing as she covers the sky nicely. I might have to give her a spin.
So... I am going to try a few changes here:
CUTS:
1 Wolfir Silverheart - he is sort of fragile as a buff. I think I will go elsewhere.
1 Grafdigger's Cage - seems very conditional and I need to get it in before my opponents abuse stuff. Ehhhh probably going to cut it for something more proactive for now.
1 Null Rod - dropping the artifact hate package for other options.
1 Damping Matrix - dropping the artifact hate package for other options.
1 Vow of Wildness - I thought it might be cool due to its dual options however I will probably go without as I dont play against that many voltron decks.
1 Predatory Rampage - if it added trample as well then I would be happy. Its an interesting card but I dont know how often I want to force people to block thrun.
1 Provoke - it might just be a little too cute. I like how I could force opponents to block during other player's attacks as well which is amusing and it draws me a card. I dont know how often I really want to force someone to block thrun though... It seems like a card that when everything is going well it might just be ok.
1 Forest
ADDS:
1 Mana Vault - Turn 2 thrun
1 Mana Crypt - Turn 2 thrun
1 Mind's Eye - More draw is good
1 Three Visits - Turn 3 thrun
1 Hornet Queen - solid control like creature. It gives me some flying defense and takes a wrath / counterspell to stop it for the most part.
1 Loxodon Warhammer - more trample. This also gives me some lifegain options to stall vs the agro decks.
1 Master of the Wild Hunt - removal options. It doesnt require me to force opponents to block thrun and he sort of becomes his own little problem on his own which I like.
1 Reliquary Tower - This deck seems like it could draw a lot of cards... it seems possibly worth having one of these handy.
I was also doing some thinking about Cathedral of War and possibly Buried Ruin but there is always the question of where to draw the line on ETB tapped and colorless lands in a deck trying to hit a turn 2/3 GG costed commander.
You might be right that pushing for a turn 2/3 thrun might be really important here.
How.... did I forget about Mana Crypt..... fail lol (probably cus I dont own one but still)
Desert Twister / Spine of Ish Sah always felt too slow and clunky for me. I will roll with Karn but thats because he can potentially get more than one. I have a harder time seeing these getting repeat use.
Yeah, they are a bit slow, but I like them as they are a catch-all. E Wit and Regrowth let me use Twister a couple times, Phyrexia's core, O Stone, Disk help me reuse Spine sometimes. They are a bit clunky and expensive but I like having them.
Master of the Wild Hunt is an interesting option. I originally avoided adding all that many creatures as I wanted to punish creature control decks some. He is some removal options on his own and seems like a good answer to utility and ETB creatures. I will see how he rolls.
I like him a lot, if you can play him early he can really get out of hand.
Exploration / Burgeoning I suppose this comes down as a question of how hard do we want to push the early thrun. I am all for adding a bit more ramp to the deck but I purposely tried to keep my curve somewhat low so I dont know about these as much... I dont really want to go too far to push for an early thrun as he still takes a while to kill someone unless we also get one of the big buff effects.
I see where you're coming from, my deck has a higher curve and more ramp so I think it fits well for me, especially with crucible and loam.
Sensei's Divining Top - I never really like it as much without a bunch of shuffle effects to clear out the topdeck. I just dont think I will have as many shuffles as I would want to run this.
It is lackluster in comparison to Library, but it is the redundancy that I like. I'm running Loam and Crucible so I'm going to add all the fetchlands I can, which will help it some.
Life from the Loam / Crucible of Worlds I have to ask, do you run in a MLD meta or do you plan on using these to fill your graveyard and gain some advantage? I have never been that interested in Loam in the past.
I'm using loam and crucible as a draw engine, with Burgeoning and Exploration it can put me far ahead sometimes. Same thing with Creeping Renissance and Praetor's Counsel. Notable synergy with Top and Library, if I don't like the 3 cards I see with top I can get rid of them with loam and draw something new. With fetchlands both will get much better. they also have the bonus of getting back Arena, Maze, etc. if they have been destroyed.
Creeping Renaissance I dont like how much this costs and how spread out we seem to be for it... What are your thoughts here? Do you plan on just picking up like 2 cards at a time with it? I considered it originally but discarded it due to how spread out I am.
I am running it because I can mill it with Loam and still get value (massive value sometimes). O Stoning away the board then naming artifacts with renaissance getting back my stone, sword, top, etc, is really nice.
Hornet Queen - I might actually pack her because I like how defensive she is. She doesn't demand that I be wrathed but it is sort of some of the stall I seem to be missing as she covers the sky nicely. I might have to give her a spin.
Yeah, she is great. Doesn't make you a huge threat but she tells everyone else to back off. I have Avenger of Zendikar in here for that purpose, but he isn't quite as defensive.
CUTS:
1 Wolfir Silverheart - he is sort of fragile as a buff. I think I will go elsewhere.
1 Grafdigger's Cage - seems very conditional and I need to get it in before my opponents abuse stuff. Ehhhh probably going to cut it for something more proactive for now.
1 Null Rod - dropping the artifact hate package for other options.
1 Damping Matrix - dropping the artifact hate package for other options.
1 Vow of Wildness - I thought it might be cool due to its dual options however I will probably go without as I dont play against that many voltron decks.
1 Predatory Rampage - if it added trample as well then I would be happy. Its an interesting card but I dont know how often I want to force people to block thrun.
1 Provoke - it might just be a little too cute. I like how I could force opponents to block during other player's attacks as well which is amusing and it draws me a card. I dont know how often I really want to force someone to block thrun though... It seems like a card that when everything is going well it might just be ok.
1 Forest
ADDS:
1 Mana Vault - Turn 2 thrun
1 Mana Crypt - Turn 2 thrun
1 Mind's Eye - More draw is good
1 Three Visits - Turn 3 thrun
1 Hornet Queen - solid control like creature. It gives me some flying defense and takes a wrath / counterspell to stop it for the most part.
1 Loxodon Warhammer - more trample. This also gives me some lifegain options to stall vs the agro decks.
1 Master of the Wild Hunt - removal options. It doesnt require me to force opponents to block thrun and he sort of becomes his own little problem on his own which I like.
1 Reliquary Tower - This deck seems like it could draw a lot of cards... it seems possibly worth having one of these handy.
I was also doing some thinking about Cathedral of War and possibly Buried Ruin but there is always the question of where to draw the line on ETB tapped and colorless lands in a deck trying to hit a turn 2/3 GG costed commander.
I'm not a fan of Cathedral, Buried Ruin seems alright though, getting back a sword or O-Stone seems good, I'll probably add it due to synergies with Crucible and Loam.
Edit: Something I am going to need to add is Tormod's Crypt or some other GY hate. Played with a Sharuum deck and he just had too much recursion that my 1 for 1 or 2 for 1 removal just wasn't working.
Just some updates. I got the list proxied up and played probably like 5 games with it this week. It is tons of fun :p. I kept having people really surprised at the amount of control I was able to pull off. I won most of the games but a lot of them were 1v1 or 3 player games so smaller games seem nice with him. Even then though I dont really intend to build this list with 1v1 as the overall goal.
Some weaknesses that I ran into:
Terminus / Hallowed Burial - obviously a problem. I got lucky though as I saw it coming but also saw that he was land screwed so I just squeezed in a Greater Good before he could hit it. I might see if I can squeeze High Market into the list as keeping up 2 mana for a regen is a good move for thrun so it would fit nicely into the landbase I think.
Constant Mists - I have a buddy with a GB deck that tutors into this fairly regularly as his defense... Without counterspells and or wheel effects it seems difficult for mono green to combat. There are some hand shenanigans I could play with or try to go the route of City of Solitude or something along those lines but generally speaking that doesn't sound good for this deck.
Deck Changes:
Gaea's Blessing -> Scavenging Ooze the one card draw is nice but not as nice as the ability to pop it off at instant speed and answer the problem entirely. The ooze gives me an additional optional beater and the lifegain / increasing size seems like a nice option as well. I want to stay away from eating my own graveyard here if I can avoid it since I run some recursion of my own.
Three Visits -> Rampant Growth I overlooked the fact that the visits is a $20.00 card lol. Meh Rampant Growth isn't much of a downgrade for saving $20.00 here.
Berserk -> Forgotten Ancient ok I had one situation where this was really cool but man I kept seeing it in opening hands and its usually bad. I had one time though where thrun was a 7 power and I used this, regrowthed it, and used it again making him a whopping 28 power trampling monster lol. Still.... I keep seeing it way too often and its really only something I want when I push for the last kill. The ancient powers himself up all on his own. He can power thrun up extremely fast, be a beater himself, and make other creatures threats. He seems like he would work great with the fight mechanics in this deck as well. It is surprising if the ancient doesnt pick up at least 3-4 counters in a rotation and if he gets more than that then super. The downside here is that he is sort of a high target creature. He is vulnerable to wraths and spot removal and takes time to work. Sometimes you have to take risks for big rewards though especially in mono color.
Hornet Queen -> Avenger of Zendikar I ended up not liking the queen nearly as much as I thought I would. Thrun is usually a faster threat than other agro decks. If I have trouble with flyers in general then that is the player I usually focus first and put them on the defensive. This is just too defensive in my opinion and I didn't really want her when I got her. Avenger gives me some more offensive options other than just thrun to go offensive with. I dont particularly like him but he does make a big wave of scarry that will be nice with the recursion options in here.
Wall of Blossoms -> Restock its a cool card and it cantrips however I just don't have ways to abuse this in here. Also I don't really need the early blocks here as I am racing people well to the point that they usually go defensive from me rather than me needing to defend myself. Restock feels a little heavy at 5 mana but it adds a bit more recovery as my card draw can be a bit hard to come by.
Forest -> High Market grabbing an easy sac outlet. The tuck wraths seem to be problematic so I want to see if this helps out. Obviously going too high on the colorless count can be a problem but only if I get like 3 of them in an opening hand. So hopefully it wont be too much of a problem.
Forest -> Buried Ruin some extra recursion. Again the colorless isnt too much of a problem assuming I dont get too much of this right away. We will see how it goes.
Just some updates. I got the list proxied up and played probably like 5 games with it this week. It is tons of fun :p. I kept having people really surprised at the amount of control I was able to pull off. I won most of the games but a lot of them were 1v1 or 3 player games so smaller games seem nice with him. Even then though I dont really intend to build this list with 1v1 as the overall goal.
Yeah I found that this deck is better in smaller games due to the lack of card advantage. It's hard to control the board when you only have a few sweepers and most of your removal is 1 for 1 or even 2 for 1, if there's 3 players you can easily fall behind and be stuck in topdeck mode. I tried out a similar Sigarda list and it tends to do better in 4-5 player games due to having better creature removal options, which is something mono green sorely lacks.
Terminus / Hallowed Burial - obviously a problem. I got lucky though as I saw it coming but also saw that he was land screwed so I just squeezed in a Greater Good before he could hit it. I might see if I can squeeze High Market into the list as keeping up 2 mana for a regen is a good move for thrun so it would fit nicely into the landbase I think.
I actually put in High Market recently too just because of this, as there isn't really any answer except to tutor him up if he gets tucked.
Constant Mists - I have a buddy with a GB deck that tutors into this fairly regularly as his defense... Without counterspells and or wheel effects it seems difficult for mono green to combat. There are some hand shenanigans I could play with or try to go the route of City of Solitude or something along those lines but generally speaking that doesn't sound good for this deck.
Gaea's Blessing -> Scavenging Ooze the one card draw is nice but not as nice as the ability to pop it off at instant speed and answer the problem entirely. The ooze gives me an additional optional beater and the lifegain / increasing size seems like a nice option as well. I want to stay away from eating my own graveyard here if I can avoid it since I run some recursion of my own.
Three Visits -> Rampant Growth I overlooked the fact that the visits is a $20.00 card lol. Meh Rampant Growth isn't much of a downgrade for saving $20.00 here.
Berserk -> Forgotten Ancient ok I had one situation where this was really cool but man I kept seeing it in opening hands and its usually bad. I had one time though where thrun was a 7 power and I used this, regrowthed it, and used it again making him a whopping 28 power trampling monster lol. Still.... I keep seeing it way too often and its really only something I want when I push for the last kill. The ancient powers himself up all on his own. He can power thrun up extremely fast, be a beater himself, and make other creatures threats. He seems like he would work great with the fight mechanics in this deck as well. It is surprising if the ancient doesnt pick up at least 3-4 counters in a rotation and if he gets more than that then super. The downside here is that he is sort of a high target creature. He is vulnerable to wraths and spot removal and takes time to work. Sometimes you have to take risks for big rewards though especially in mono color.
Hornet Queen -> Avenger of Zendikar I ended up not liking the queen nearly as much as I thought I would. Thrun is usually a faster threat than other agro decks. If I have trouble with flyers in general then that is the player I usually focus first and put them on the defensive. This is just too defensive in my opinion and I didn't really want her when I got her. Avenger gives me some more offensive options other than just thrun to go offensive with. I dont particularly like him but he does make a big wave of scarry that will be nice with the recursion options in here.
Wall of Blossoms -> Restock its a cool card and it cantrips however I just don't have ways to abuse this in here. Also I don't really need the early blocks here as I am racing people well to the point that they usually go defensive from me rather than me needing to defend myself. Restock feels a little heavy at 5 mana but it adds a bit more recovery as my card draw can be a bit hard to come by.
Forest -> High Market grabbing an easy sac outlet. The tuck wraths seem to be problematic so I want to see if this helps out. Obviously going too high on the colorless count can be a problem but only if I get like 3 of them in an opening hand. So hopefully it wont be too much of a problem.
Forest -> Buried Ruin some extra recursion. Again the colorless isn't too much of a problem assuming I dont get too much of this right away. We will see how it goes.
I agree with most of the changes, but after testing Berserk it's one of my favorite cards in here. The versatility is just amazing in this deck. If an opponent is attacking somebody else, you can sometimes kill off a player or scary defending creature by pumping somebody else's dude, and then once the turn gets shipped Berserk kills the creature you just pumped. I used it on somebody's Terastodon to take out a large chunk of life from an opponent and also kill the Terastodon in one spell. Also, the synergy with Thrun's regenerate is awesome. I have been able to one shot people with him after berserk, and the "downside" of destroying the creature can be negated by just keeping regen mana open. I was even considering putting in Isochrom Scepter almost exclusively for Berserk, but decided against it due to the lack of other targets.
So I'm building a GWB control deck that wants to blow up artifacts/enchantments but doesn't want to lose card advantage. How did I miss Mystic Melting and Rending Vines?
This deck looks like fun to pilot. Not what you expect from someone playing forests. Forgotten Ancient plus Spike Weaver = tech.
Been playing the list a bit here and there. Its really surprising how things have been working out. Some of the few problems I have been encountering have been Savra and Child of Alara as commanders.
Some fairly really fun things I have done so far to date in this deck:
1) Opponent plays Living Death to kill thrun, I respond with a Momentous Fall placing Thrun in the bin. Opponent cries
Anyways, a lot of things have been working out with a few not really so much. Some changes going forward. Most of these changes were me cutting the cards I didnt like seeing and trying out a few new ones so not as many direct translations here:
CUTS:
Triumph of Ferocity Its sort of slow draw. Its very situational if you will draw anything as well and most people are trying to kill thrun so its tough to rely on this sort of slow effect.
Sylvan Scrying I dont know if I have found the land tutor as impressive as I had hoped for originally. Arena is nice and all but it not tapping for mana has been a problem. We have lots of other control in the deck and I just dont know how impressed I have been with the land tutor in here.
Mind's Eye mana intensive and slow. I have found several of the other green power draw effects to just be so much more explosive.
Avenger of Zendikar - I continue to be unimpressed with him. I even Chord of Callinged into him at instant speed at the end of one of my opponents turn just to have him eat a Swords to Plowshares in response to his tokens. I have yet to turn the tokens sideways for any profit here and I think I have tutored him up like 3 times now... my meta is very heavy on wraths and creature control.
Gigantiform Gigantiform has felt a little clunky. Its expensive and paying 6 mana for a 4 power buff hasn't quite felt good enough. I decided in the end it wasn't good enough for a slot at that mana.
Rain of Thorns It seems like it never really works out. Its too slow and it cant double target one card type. I had it in hand vs like 3 artifacts I wanted to smash the other day with no enchantments or utility lands in play so I was really dissapointed in its results there. It feels too slow and expensive personally.
ADDS:
Power Matrix This seems like all sort of abilities I want regularly on Thrun. Flying + trample means he can avoid a ton of stuff and it doesnt have an equip cost so putting it on is super easy to do. Its not an enchant either so it doesn't fall off randomly. The power bump is really small but the evasions + not being an aura are definately bonuses.
Blanchwood Armor HUGE buff. I am hoping I run enough trample to back this working out but considering its likely to come down even early game as like a +4/+4 the turn after thrun hits at a minimum seems really nice. Late in the game this could easily be more explosive than Berserk.
Mind Stone I keep weighing how much I want to go with fast ramp as I have tons of options to go with. The upside to this one is that I can canibalize it for a card draw later if it comes to that. Being an artifact is a downside and that it taps for colorless is also a pain. However the option to eat it for a card keeps it as a stone I still generally like having. Ill give it a shot here.
Infiltration Lens I keep grabbing trample because thrun keeps getting chumped. Even with trample he still gets chumped a lot to reduce his damage. This lets me power out some draw from his blockers which seems nice. This might also be about as good as trample as it makes people think twice about giving me cards.
Strata Scythe - HUGE Buff. This one looks at all lands of that type and being in a mono colored deck means that this is gona be a big buff. Green is very popular in EDH too so the chance of this being like a +10/+10 by turn 5 or so seems easy to happen.
Spidery Grasp - This gives another solid anti flying card. Untapping thrun and swatting down a threat seems good to have. I can also use this while going offensive for a surprise extra trample option. This feels like a good versatile answer for a green control deck.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Thrun is going strong. I really like the unique playstyle he has. I have a few more changes from games I have played.
DECK CHANGES:
Wildsize -> Tower Above I like the surprise factor of Wildsize however Tower Above gives me options on how my opponent might block. Generally everyone is sort of wary of Thrun anyways due to my Epic Proportions shenanigans. I had considered using something like Predatory Rampage which would be better against tokens however the fact is that Tower Above gives me a large buff, trample, and block control all in one. It has synergy with most all of my draw outlets as well due to that so I like everything it does in one card.
Spike Weaver -> Tangle I really didnt like that the weaver would just sit out in the open for removal. Part of the great thing about thrun is that he is hard to target but having my defenses easily targeted sucks. I am just about always happier to have my fogs in hand than in play so I am swapping to Tangle which is still quite powerful.
Spidery Grasp -> Umezawa's Jitte This deck is sort of scarry to defend against so I have found that a lot of people dont like swinging at me until they are swinging really hard. Due to this I have found the Grasp a bit less impressive. Jitte on the other hand gives me great control which I am always looking for and the option of pumping thrun as well.
Restock -> Mask of Memory Most of the time I just feel like Restock takes up my entire turn. Due to this I decided to keep the cheaper regrowths and the more powerful Praetor's Counsel and cut the middle of the pack regrowth. Mask seems like it should work really well in with my trample aggro strategy.
The deck has been really fun so far. Hopefully it sticks around for a long time as I have found it to be a lot more... interactive I guess... than most other mono green decks I have done before.
EDIT: just as a follow up, I drew Tower Above and it was essentially always great. It functions along a lot of lines of what this deck is trying to do and it gives me a kill while easily trampling over for more damage. It works great with a lot of the draw effects as well and its GGG mana cost is cheap for the deck and easy to multi task with other great effects. I didn't see any of the other changes yet but I was extremely happy with the results I saw from Tower Above.
I think you should add Kamahl, Fist of Krosa. Generally he gives you wrath protection because people don't want to lose land. However you can also go on the offensive with Ulvenwald Tracker and for 1GG you can start punching lands to death.
Also if the stars aligned you could Revenge of the Hunted and completely blow someone out of land and creatures.
Adding the tracker and revenge as soon as I get the cards.
Really considering making a Thrun deck similar to yours. This list looks similar to what I was thinking with monogreen control, how have you enjoyed it so far? I'm considering putting a Salvaging Station toolbox in mine for additional card draw, plus utility cards to possibly help out against the graveyard abuse that can occur in my meta. Also curious how Ritual of Subdual has preformed for you, this was a card I had my eye on when I considered monogreen stax at one point. Anyways, great deck!
Natural Affinity could do some disgusting things if someone tries to Wrath....I guess if you have lands in your hand and more mana rock then them, this could be good? Dunno.
Living Plane is probably too hard to hit with a Jitte full of counters, but that would be amazing. With Tabernacle of Pendell Vale it can lock them out of lands just long enough for Thrun to win the game. You could even put in Goblin Rocket Launcher.....ok....that's probably just bad.
Ok, for starters I have a few changes I am trying out:
DECK CHANGES:
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood -> Cathedral of War Oran-Rief is hard to use as it costs extra mana when casting thrun. Due to that I haven't really seen much use for it so far. The cathedral still taps for mana but doesn't require slowing down or paying more for thrun to get him bigger.
Terrain Generator -> Ancient Tomb I realized the Generator wasn't ramping me properly lol. It was a bit of an oversight but it takes 3 to throw an extra land out which makes me ramping at the wrong time with it. The tomb on the other hand speeds me up a turn which is nice.
Winding Canyons -> Rogue's Passage I dont usually have to recast thrun a lot and I dont run much for other creatures so the canyons hasn't been that great. Unblockable on a land that still taps for mana on the other hand seems like great utility.
Oracle of Mul Daya -> Ancient Stirrings Oracle gives some card advantage in the fact that I draw less lands but it doesnt really ramp me appropriately for thrun. I have a lot of other advantage in the deck as well so I decided that giving away all of my draws for land wasn't as good here. I like the Ancient Stirrings as I have a lot of colorless targets as well as the option to always get a land out of it. Most of my fun artifacts are fun little toys and the ability to sort of dig at them seems like a nice option.
Blanchwood Armor -> Icy Manipulator I dont actually know if this one is going to stick but I am bringing it in to try it out. These effects give me options to defend myself from other creatures or remove blockers from my way. I like the balance of Icy considering it can target a lot of things and cheaply activates.
Other Considerations:
O-Naginata its sort of like a cheap loxy warhammer. It costs less to cast and equip and still gives the trample and power buff of it. I do like picking up the life though when possible. I could potentially bring this in yet for another buff I am currently running but I just sort of realized that it was an option so I have to sort of think it over in comparison to what I am currently running.
Scapeshift with the addition of Rogue's Passage and a few other utility lands the option of just massively grabbing utility lands into play seems fairly sweet. I sort of wanted to play with the utility lands a bit more though to see how important they are. This seems like a cool addition though but I might also consider furthering my utility lands if I were to go with something like this.
Predator, Flagship this gives some nice dual purposes here. The ability to fly thrun through or fly another creature to block for me as well as swat down flyers or other creatures in general seems nice. My worry here though is the cost involved in playing and using it. Paying 7 to kill after paying 5 to cast seems really slow. Plus it seems like it would be heavily targeted.
I think you should add Kamahl, Fist of Krosa. Generally he gives you wrath protection because people don't want to lose land. However you can also go on the offensive with Ulvenwald Tracker and for 1GG you can start punching lands to death.
Also if the stars aligned you could Revenge of the Hunted and completely blow someone out of land and creatures.
Adding the tracker and revenge as soon as I get the cards.
Kamahl, Fist of Krosa - my biggest issue with him is just how mana intensive he can be. I agree that later into the game he can be really cool but I feel like he is just so much more mana hungry than the rest of the deck really is. He does give some wrath protection however but it depends on how much that has been giving you issues.
LD in general an option but I personally wouldnt really go out of my way for it. Kamahl might be viable due to his option of multi overrunning but animating all lands seems a bit more hit an miss.
Really considering making a Thrun deck similar to yours. This list looks similar to what I was thinking with monogreen control, how have you enjoyed it so far? I'm considering putting a Salvaging Station toolbox in mine for additional card draw, plus utility cards to possibly help out against the graveyard abuse that can occur in my meta. Also curious how Ritual of Subdual has preformed for you, this was a card I had my eye on when I considered monogreen stax at one point. Anyways, great deck!
I have found it extremely fun to play. Green has a hard time controlling but thrun gives a really solid wincon that other control decks have a hard time dealing with. Due to the unique design of Thrun we get to really use some interesting cards that you might not otherwise see much play with.
Salvaging Station - I dont think we have enough targets for this to be all that effective.
Ritual of Subdual - its solid for just sealing the game up when you are ahead. Its sort of like a LD effect that is temporary that you can later undue. Opponents mana trinkets can be a problem with this but we are green so blowing them up is always an option short of Darksteel Ingot which has been a problem a few times in the past.
Id be happy to answer any other questions you might have as well.
Natural Affinity could do some disgusting things if someone tries to Wrath....I guess if you have lands in your hand and more mana rock then them, this could be good? Dunno.
Living Plane is probably too hard to hit with a Jitte full of counters, but that would be amazing. With Tabernacle of Pendell Vale it can lock them out of lands just long enough for Thrun to win the game. You could even put in Goblin Rocket Launcher.....ok....that's probably just bad.
LD effects are an option but for the most part they are like a 2 piece combo in a deck that doesn't have much for tutors into the other parts. I dont think they are worth running as they dont do much on their own. If I were to run any of them it would be Kamahl who has other purposes as well.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Are you running Slice in Twain just for the cantrip? Otherwise I would say maybe switching it out for Nature's Claim; its such an underused card and I love how its a 1 cmc. The 4 life doesn't really matter to me usually, but its always been a champ. Also have you considered running Mirri's Guile? I know its not as great as say Sylvan, but if you happen to get it on turn one or at least early on it can be super useful. Its one of my pet cards, and has always served me well; I sleeve it in most of my green decks. I also support Predator, Flagship for the flyers and or Gravity Well for the same purpose. Decklist looks nice though.
Are you running Slice in Twain just for the cantrip? Otherwise I would say maybe switching it out for Nature's Claim; its such an underused card and I love how its a 1 cmc. The 4 life doesn't really matter to me usually, but its always been a champ. Also have you considered running Mirri's Guile? I know its not as great as say Sylvan, but if you happen to get it on turn one or at least early on it can be super useful. Its one of my pet cards, and has always served me well; I sleeve it in most of my green decks. I also support Predator, Flagship for the flyers and or Gravity Well for the same purpose. Decklist looks nice though.
Slice In Twain and such: Originally I had a lot less card drawing in here. I still like the cantrip on them but I could potentially test the 1-2 mana removals as well. I dont play against a lot of combo based tactics where a naturalize would stop them though so I haven't really been pushing for the fast effects of them so much as get the job done and get something out of it. If I were playing against more combo or someone else were I would suggest running cheaper options and or Krosan Grip as well. But you would likely also shuffle some of the fog effects out if playing against combo and worry a bit less about trample so much as just juicing thrun huge in that situation.
Mirri's Guile: I did consider these effects but I dont feel like I have enough shuffle effects to really make these topdeck manipulators work in here. I considered divining top as well with the same outcome. Library is different due to the fact that it can draw me cards.
Is there a reason you don't run any of the mana doublers?
What do I need double mana for? My mana curve is generally fairly low in this deck with almost no X mana stuff that would be good with double mana in it. If I was building around genesis wave and Hurricane effects then perhaps but I dont have a ton of mana sinks and I dont have a very high mana curve overall in here. I just dont really have a need for it here.
Just to check I ran the list through deckstats and came back with a 3.28 mpc which is actually quite good. It is actually a bit lower than that as well since Tower Above is considered to be a 6 mana card instead of the GGG that it will likely cost in the mono green deck.
Shouldn't this deck really be called Troll Controll? I'm disappointed in you.
How is Power Matrix working out for you? I don't think I've actually seen that card run ever.
Fixed
The matrix has actually been working fairly well. It gives me two forms of evasion plus a small size boost and doesn't fall off / have to be re-equipped when thrun dies now and then. I haven't done enough testing with it to say too much but I have been fairly happy to see it. I wish it was a bigger buff but it has its pros and cons.
So I finally put together a list with Thrun and gave it a test run. It was pretty enjoyable, but I am looking to put in Akroma's Memorial into mine to test out. How have you found it so far? I am using a slightly larger amount of creatures, testing out the cantripers like Wall of Blossoms, which has made me consider adding in Survival of the Fittest for a little added toolboxing.
what do you think of cyclone and drop of honey? Both would fit control-wise, and are quite disruptive, keep the board clear from tokens and small utility creatures.
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Hakim, Loreweaver
Autumn Willow Yomiji, Who Bars the Way
Hanna, Ship's Navigator
Chromium
Skyfire Kirin
I run this in my Isao EDH. He should be Thrun but I rarely play him since my play group is infested with people who play Kaalia or Riku so I just deny them mana with mass land destruction. Plow Under is soooooo goood. It makes so many people sad.
I'm really loving this thread btw since it has given me a lot of ideas with where to go with my list.
Edit: Just saw that you have Primal Command. uh I really think you should add Terastodon/Vorinclex. Using Tooth and Nail for those two bad boys is so nasty. But then again I play mono green land destruction control.
So I finally put together a list with Thrun and gave it a test run. It was pretty enjoyable, but I am looking to put in Akroma's Memorial into mine to test out. How have you found it so far? I am using a slightly larger amount of creatures, testing out the cantripers like Wall of Blossoms, which has made me consider adding in Survival of the Fittest for a little added toolboxing.
As far as Wall of Blossoms goes, I think its fairly solid. You could also look at Elvish Visionary as well as a similar creature. They are easy to cast and dont eat up card advantage but I tend to focus on them more in decks that have abuse for creatures where you will do more than just cast them and use them as chumps. I dont think they are bad here but I dont see much of a way to abuse them. They are nice to overcome some black edicts though so depending on how much of that you see I think they are good to combat that style of effect.
Survival - I honestly wouldn't run this without at the very least like close to 20 creatures in a list. Without a creature in hand it really flops badly. I think you might see better results just picking up another creature tutor perhaps Worldly Tutor or something else instead.
what do you think of cyclone and drop of honey? Both would fit control-wise, and are quite disruptive, keep the board clear from tokens and small utility creatures.
Cyclone is a card that I have looked at a few times. I havent playtested it but I think it could have some issues with the fact that it doesnt do any damage until next turn. My biggest complaint is just how long it takes to bring it up to doing damage and how much mana you have to devote to it to do such. I still want to test it sometime but its slow nature worries me.
drop of honey it lacks the ability to be controlled which is meh. Trample on average does more than removing a 1/1 from play as well. On average I would say you are better off with things you can control a bit better.
I run this in my Isao EDH. He should be Thrun but I rarely play him since my play group is infested with people who play Kaalia or Riku so I just deny them mana with mass land destruction. Plow Under is soooooo goood. It makes so many people sad.
I'm really loving this thread btw since it has given me a lot of ideas with where to go with my list.
Plow Under - its solid but it tends to just work against one opponent which I dont care for as much. It is a strong effect however any sort of shuffling just puts them down two lands. I like it a lot more for smaller groups or 1v1 games though where I agree its amazing. On average though if I am going to go out for hitting just one opponent with something like this I want it to be really powerful like discard their whole hand or something.
Primal Command - I actually run this in my list. As a creature tutor its only sort of meh but for the most part I sit on it as a thrun recover and it has tons of versatility to tuck noncreatures or hate graveyards as well.
Brutalizer Exarch - I considered him but in the end I decided that he is a worse Primal Command. I dont really care about the 3/3 body and his tutor is to topdeck. He doesn't have the capability to do anything to graveyards either so in the end I decided that he was just worse than the command. Even then he isn't bad but I dont have a ton of creatures I bother tutoring into so in the end I haven't been overly huge on adding him.
In my opinion if you specifically want to hate on Kaalia and Riku run Hall of Gemstone. I personally haven't gotten around to getting it in my list but its fairly high on my wanted list of fun annoying things.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Plow Under - its solid but it tends to just work against one opponent which I dont care for as much. It is a strong effect however any sort of shuffling just puts them down two lands. I like it a lot more for smaller groups or 1v1 games though where I agree its amazing. On average though if I am going to go out for hitting just one opponent with something like this I want it to be really powerful like discard their whole hand or something.
Primal Command - I actually run this in my list. As a creature tutor its only sort of meh but for the most part I sit on it as a thrun recover and it has tons of versatility to tuck noncreatures or hate graveyards as well.
Brutalizer Exarch - I considered him but in the end I decided that he is a worse Primal Command. I dont really care about the 3/3 body and his tutor is to topdeck. He doesn't have the capability to do anything to graveyards either so in the end I decided that he was just worse than the command. Even then he isn't bad but I dont have a ton of creatures I bother tutoring into so in the end I haven't been overly huge on adding him.
In my opinion if you specifically want to hate on Kaalia and Riku run Hall of Gemstone. I personally haven't gotten around to getting it in my list but its fairly high on my wanted list of fun annoying things.
Oh yea. I just noticed this is the multi player forum. My deck is tuned for 1vs1. Wow thank you for the Hall of Gemstone suggestion. Nice. Very nice. I am going to test it out as soon as possible. lol.
This is a very interesting deck you have here. You don't want to go mana intensive as Mono Green which is different.
I'm running a Voltron-style Thrun deck, but I think there's enough overlap for me to offer two cards for consideration that have served me very, very well in a controllish capacity.
1. Arena. Most flying creatures, for one, aren't that big. No one will really feel good about using a card to blow this up in multiplayer, and one doesn't need to make the huge commitment that is tapping Thrun into the Red Zone to use it. This will tap their creature too, regardless of who wins the fight, allowing one to keep a creature with Annihilate from triggering at the cost of whatever chump is at hand.
2. Even bigger than that, though, is the Kusari-Gama. It's a hard choice to make, whether to block the general that has "2: +1/+0 until end of turn" or chump him, or dealing the creature's power in untargetted artifact damage to all of one's creatures.
The pump plays well with most combat abilities other gear might be giving Thrun. First Strike, Trample, Lifelink, Wither, Double Strike, and don't even get me started on Inquisitor's Flail.
I'm running a Voltron-style Thrun deck, but I think there's enough overlap for me to offer two cards for consideration that have served me very, very well in a controllish capacity.
1. Arena. Most flying creatures, for one, aren't that big. No one will really feel good about using a card to blow this up in multiplayer, and one doesn't need to make the huge commitment that is tapping Thrun into the Red Zone to use it. This will tap their creature too, regardless of who wins the fight, allowing one to keep a creature with Annihilate from triggering at the cost of whatever chump is at hand.
2. Even bigger than that, though, is the Kusari-Gama. It's a hard choice to make, whether to block the general that has "2: +1/+0 until end of turn" or chump him, or dealing the creature's power in untargetted artifact damage to all of one's creatures.
The pump plays well with most combat abilities other gear might be giving Thrun. First Strike, Trample, Lifelink, Wither, Double Strike, and don't even get me started on Inquisitor's Flail.
Arena - its in my list already. I have been considering adding another land to the deck though as arena doesnt give me mana. I just need to find something to cut to add another mana producing land though...
Kusari-Gama it depends on how much token based strategies you see. Trample and flying already both negate large numbers fairly well here. The cost to play and equip it are a bit high at 3 mana plus pumping thrun at all is going to get costly as well. I have considered it but I think I actually like Grappling Hook even more as the double strike works great with trample. Even then though, these effects are extremely expensive to try to drop and equip. In my mind Kusari-Gama is sort of a meta call for more heavy token based strategies.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I just figured I would drop in and do sort of a status report on Thrun. I have been working really hard on him and my Orzov deck of late and Thrun has exceded my expectations in a lot of ways. Being a control player at heart getting into mono green has been a difficult thing for a long time now.
Overall I have been getting a few 1v1 games in with him of late (against other MP decks...) Thrun is one of those decks that works fairly good in smaller games and this build seems to scale fairly nicely up to a 4 player game. I dont think I would play this deck in a 5+ player game though without teams or something.
Of the recent deck changes here have been my results so far:
Cathedral of War this has been a huge improvement over Oran-Rief, the Vastwood. I never wanted to slow down in playing thrun for a power buff of one. So far I have little to nothing to complain about it with it being a solid land based buff for me.
Ancient Tomb ok, it sort of hurts as I think the last game I got it I took something like 14 damage off of it through the game lol. It has been well worth the ramp though in the list. It hurts the most though when you dont manage to get much mana going into the midgame though.
Rogue's Passage I have yet to actually activate it to be honest. I havent drawn it much of at all yet though either. It is one of those endgame things where you just cheat past those blockers for the kill. I have yet to use it though or really see it for that matter. I do have some worry about how much it takes to activate however I am fine with it as of now.
Ancient Stirrings I really havent gotten much use out of it yet. It does its job cheaply though and I think I have seen it once or twice now. More testing is needed but its mostly just a sort of filler card... I could see it being cut but want to test it further before making any more decision on it.
Mask of Memory it has been amazing draw for me. Its ability to draw multiple cards has been really strong. I love hooking this plus infiltration lens and trample up as it just turns into power drawing lol.
Umezawa's Jitte it has been incredible so far. It gives me spot removal and pump together which has been really really good in here. All of the trample evasion turns those counters into very lethal pump later on.
Tangle I havent seen it a ton yet but it did a good job of buying me two turns against Omnath the other day. Big fat green decks can give me some problems so having some of these fogs has been great. I have been contemplating Spore Cloud due to how effective these effects have been for me.
Tower Above this is one of the better spot removals I have access to. I cant believe I didn't have this sooner. It gives me some problems against tap ability creatures who can dodge the block though but other than that this has been fairly amazing.
Icy Manipulator the verdict is still out on this one but it did do a good job last time I drew it to tap down blockers and send thrun through more. Time will tell but the tapping has been quite effective so far.
The questionable cards as the list stands now are:
Ancient Stirrings I dont know about its consistency or necessity in here... its a nice filler card but I think it might need to go for something else.
Forgotten Ancient I get all weirded out every time it comes to hand that I just dont play him... I guess he feels a bit like Avenger of Zendikar to me where he draws a ton of attention and doesn't do anything until next turn... I could see him going out for something else...
Strata Scythe big expensive buff with no evasion... I dont like how much it takes to get this online and still have no evasion. Still, if I already have evasion this could totally wreck someone.
Gaea's Embrace it seems a bit middle of the road... its an aura as well so its done when thrun dies. It does a lot of useful things but being an aura is the main problem currently.
I've been working on this too, and though I'm sure I haven't played as much with it as others, I do have some comments. Much to our surprise, Thrun defeated the local Sharuum deck 2-1 earlier on.
For me, Strata Scythe and Rogue's Passage have been insane. Both have won games the turn they hit the field. I'm considering taking out the smaller gear, as I am somewhat weak to mass artifact destruction. I'm also trying on packages that aren't equips/enchants, like Increasing Savagery, to keep Thrun robust.
It's also been very key for me to have a dense tutor and draw package. Green Sun, Fauna Shaman, Brutalizer, Fierce Empath, Worldly Tutor, Summoner's Pact have all been crucial. So has recursion: Eternal Witness and Genesis, plus Creeping Rennaissance.
I've found mono green has tons of removal. Break some mana rocks and blow up land with Terrastodon, that's great. Lightning Greaves has been strong too, for protecting Thrun's big buddies as well as haste.
What I really want is away to reliably get a Jester's Cap online. Then it will be a really solid anti combo deck.
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Why Play Thrun?
Welcome to mono green commander. If you are here then I hope you want to beat some face and screw with some control players. Thrun is one of the absolute most difficult commanders for control to interact with. Playing mono color can be very satisfying as it has a smaller card pool to put into consideration and thus tends to use less staple cards in its creation. This thread is devoted to a very resilient aggressive voltron build with elements of control and disruption splashed in. If what you were looking for was the counterspell heavy, wrathing, combo based decks; I am afraid you hit up the wrong page. Everyone has different reasons as to why they will play a commander but I will take some time to explain somewhat why I made my own choice of Thrun as a commander.
Why you might like Thrun:
Why you might not like Thrun:
Alternative Options:
In the end, I really enjoyed the built in defensive capabilities that Thrun brings to the table. He is incredibly resilient against control decks and can be incredibly difficult to interact with as far as opponents are concerned. With the change to the legend rule, Thrun's built in protection from counterspells gets even more powerful as it shifts things like Spell Crumple and Hinder to become larger problems for other hexproof commanders. Thrun isn't picked as a commander for his built in offensive capabilities after all. Thrun's own power comes from his difficulty to be disrupted. This means that sorcery speed buff effects and even instant speed buff effects targeting him are very difficult to interact with beyond counterspells. Regeneration is surprisingly useful as well when you look at how many sweepers available do allow for regeneration such as Austere Command, Oblivion Stone, Akroma's Vengeance, and Nevinyrral's Disk. With the move away from clones killing legends, some buff options such as totem armors: Boar Umbra, Snake Umbra, and Spider Umbra can fight off some of the wraths that don't allow regeneration. When it really comes down to it, Hallowed Burial and Terminus are some of the few weaknesses Thrun really even does have. Even with these, we could use sacrifice outlets or creature tutors to recover from them.
I personally also find mono colored decks to be very flavorful in the fact that they are generally not good-stuff decks. Thrun has some very unique attributes to him which also allows for some very unique situations / card setups. Where Sigarda might have built in flying, Thrun can take advantage of things that force blockers that she cannot such as Lure, Provoke, Tower Above where the fact that he does not fly is a good thing as you can better control the board with. Unlike Uril, Thrun has no reason to funnel his buffs into one card type so his buffs cover a lot of different avenues including instant, sorcery, and equipment buffs as well. Thrun also has some very interesting buffs available to him that the other two might not find as useful such as Riding the Dilu Horse where Sigarda already flies and Uril needs enchantments primarily. Berserk is also a very unique tool in the fact that Thrun can regenerate through using it where most other commanders will die after using it.
In the end, you have to make the decision for yourself if you think Thrun is right for you. If you want a flavorful and resilient commander though, I think he is a very good choice to consider.
History / Bio
I spent a lot of time trying to come up with a green deck that I liked playing. I have built a handful of mono green commanders such as Ezuri, Kamahl, Omnath, and Seton. In the end though, most mono green commanders just ended up being very linear and very light on their control elements. I got bored of the overrun style of green stompy deck. Thrun has been a lot more unique to me being that he doesn't come from overrun tactics.
When I first get into Thrun, I decided to go with a very creature light control heavy list. This was a ton of fun and I will admit to having had less buffs in it then than I do now. After a while of playing this I realized that I didn't really run a very high mana curve to the deck. I ended up dropping my mana costs further and using some mana disruption to try to punish the decks that were ramping hard and using big mana to their advantage. This was amusing to me but the problem was that it turned into a 3v1 against my mana deprival too quickly. In the end I just couldn't consistently get these effects online correctly.
More recently I cut back on my disruption just keeping a few effects in for occasional use. Generally speaking I focus more on bringing Thrun up to size so he can get some damage in. Still I try to keep some disruption and control elements to the list. My overall goal though is to execute my opponents though so sometimes the best answer is to just crush someone who is annoying me.
My name is Brian, I am 26 years old, I am a spike player who loves to win and tweak his lists. I live out in South Dakota sort of in the middle of nowhere. I got into playing EDH back in the summer of 2010. Our playgroup started sort of small and we went on and off on EDH play but eventually it took off and most of us sort of started dying off from other formats and only playing EDH. We would get Tuesday Nights where we would get 8-12 guys together down at the shop and just play 4+ hours of EDH every week. I got to be sort of one of the big shot players in my group where a lot of times people would just swing things at me because that's the player I am regardless of what deck I bring to the table. I try to build decks with the mentality that everyone might be attacking me and I might have to fend off more than one opponent. While I love perfecting my decks, I don't particularly like utilizing combos so if I have a combo in my deck it is usually because it has multi purposes that can be utilized to go infinite if it is drawn in that way. I am a spike player and I love getting my cards worth so I play plenty of card advantage style cards and I love comes into play effects.
I moved from my original EDH playgroup to a college town in May 2012. My competition when I moved to this new meta was totally terrible when I got here. Due to this I was playing things like a $1,300.00 Jenara deck against $50-$100 decks. Sadly, I had to push the guys in my meta to proxy decks up so that I could have some competition. Currently they have gone a long ways and give me a much better run for my money.
I have played magic since hummm I guess like 1996 or 1997. I have been playing magic since Ice Age but that was when I was in like 4th grade so obviously I was not the player then that I am now. I picked up on playing standard FNM a lot in high school where I played a lot in the Odyssey / Onslaught blocks. I played into Mirrodin then quit when Kokusho started beating everyone up. I don't hold it against him though, I would love to see him come off of the ban list as I think he is fine in EDH. Perhaps keep him banned as a commander.
I am back to playing magic again and have been playing standard since Zendikar came out. I go back and forth on my thoughts of Standard but regardless I love playing EDH. I recently stopped playing standard again sometime just before Avacyn Restored was released due to my own personal issues with the direction Wizards is trying to push standard away from control. I still dabble at standard a little bit utilizing my friend John's collection, who has been very gracious and allows me to use his cards, but I really have a strong dislike for the current direction Wizards is going with standard. Still, I stay strong as a Commander player.
I have built more EDH decks than I can count up anymore. I am quite good at dropping staple cards into a list which is really unfortunate. I keep the number of decks I have constructed to somewhat of a minimum. I don't like replicating how decks feel so I sort of go with colors / strategies I don't already have. I am sort of an aggro / control player who tends to for the most part not focus heavily on infinite combos. I usually tend to be playing 3-4 decks at a time so if I have more decks than that it tends to be because they have earned their keep and stick around due to that but don't get played.
Deck List
1 Thrun, the Last Troll (*)
CREATURES (7)
1 Ulvenwald Tracker
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Duplicant
ARTIFACT (19)
1 Mana Crypt (*)
1 Expedition Map
1 Infiltration Lens (*)
1 Mana Vault
1 O-Naginata
1 Sol Ring
1 Coldsteel Heart
1 Mask of Memory (*)
1 Moss Diamond
1 Torpor Orb
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Winter Orb
1 Fireshrieker
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Vengeance (*)
1 Avarice Amulet
1 Mind's Eye (*)
1 Storm Cauldron
1 Rancor (*)
1 Sylvan Library
1 Blanchwood Armor
1 Hall of Gemstone
1 Snake Umbra
1 Epic Proportions
1 Primeval Bounty
1 Recycle
1 Ritual of Subdual
1 Mythic Proportions
1 Eldrazi Conscription
INSTANT (8)
1 Berserk (Beta)
1 Nature's Claim
1 Worldly Tutor
1 Beast Within
1 Chord of Calling
1 Crushing Vines (*)
1 Hunter's Insight (*)
1 Rending Vines (*)
SORCERY (13)
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Prey Upon (*)
1 Explore
1 Nature's Lore
1 Regrowth
1 Sylvan Scrying
1 Recollect
1 Riding the Dilu Horse
1 Harmonize
1 Increasing Savagery
1 Hunter's Prowess
1 Primal Command
1 Soul's Majesty (*)
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
1 Karn Liberated
LAND (39)
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Buried Ruin
1 Cathedral of War (*)
11 Forest
1 High Market (*)
1 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Khalni Garden
1 Mouth of Ronom
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
1 Opal Palace
1 Rogue's Passage
14 Snow-Covered Forest
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Tower of the Magistrate
1 Treetop Village
Deckstats for this list can be found here (Last updated 2/11/2014).
Building on a Budget
Somehow or another my own decklist ends up being somewhere close to $1,000.00 due to probably like 4 cards in particular. When I started building this deck it was actually a fairly budget list being that it is mono color. With making a few trims of things I later added to the deck you can easily cut over half of the cost off of the deck.
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale I use this as primarily token and ETB utility creature disruption. Used in conjunction with things like Winter Orb it effectively kills creatures as well. However its really not a key part of the deck. Its a great control outlet for a deck like this to pick up as dealing with tokens can be tricky outside of fog effects. All this being said, the deck very easily functions without this card. It costs like $400.00 for a cheap one last I checked so I wouldn't really expect many to go out and buy one. I happened to obtain one when selling off my standard collection halfway through Innistrad block (at which time this card was like $100.00 cheaper). Its totally understandable and expected that this is one of the biggest budget cuts for most. I don't think the value you will see from this will be anything significant but I do very much enjoy it in my list especially with my few means of tutoring for it and playing it. Replacing it with just a basic land or another utility land is totally acceptable.
Riding the Dilu Horse this is the second most expensive card in the list as it stands. Its probably one of my favorite pieces of tech for Thrun to use though as its a continuous buff that does not end at end of turn. However it will put you back probably $70.00 and the reason its only that much is probably because it doesn't see much play anywhere. I actually consider the $70.00 price tag to be very low in comparison to the value it gives the deck but even then, this is not a necessary add for the deck. Its a fun card but seeing how we cant really tutor for it or anything there are much better places to start when spending money building the deck. This is one crazy good piece of evasion though and the fact that its a buff + essentially unblockable for 3 mana that continues and doesn't leave a target for removal is huge. I compare it to like the best aura ever made for Thrun.
Berserk this will also put you out almost $50.00 for a cheap copy. Its a very nice effect but when building on a budget, Overwhelming Stampede does the same effect for a little more mana. Since you wont have to regenerate Thrun afterwards it only costs 2 more but if its the last opponent you are going to try to kill or something then it cost significantly less mana. I like what this card does but considering its a short one time buff, its something you could definitely live without.
Mana Crypt I picked up a copy for $50.00 but it seems like it tends to run a little higher than that now. In multiplayer, starting a turn or two faster is impressive but not nearly as much as it is in heads up. If you intend to play in multiplayer then you could easily sub this out for a different piece of ramp if you want without seeing all that much of a decrease in power. Its a nice piece of ramp but when building the deck up its easily a card you can wait on until later. Really any other Rampant Growth effect will still speed you up and cost you a lot less money.
At this point, the decklist that is remaining should be somewhere around probably $350.00 - $400.00 to obtain the rest of the deck. I won't stop here though if you are looking for a smaller investment than this I have more suggestions. Some of my suggestions for alternatives will be sort of theoretical but should help as potential alternatives. Feel free of course to run whatever you feel fits your own needs though.
Karn Liberated generally speaking this is just a answer to anything. I really like him though because he exile removes them which occasionally really needs to happen. Sometimes, simply killing something isn't enough so this saves me time in the two step process of removing things from graveyards as well. However, more recent his price tag went up to around $30.00 due to modern tron decks. You can look at running something like Spine of Ish Sah as a replacement for him and a much more budget friendly card. Desert Twister can also work in this slot but I like the fact that Spine of Ish Sah has some built in recovery.
Chord of Calling this deck mostly uses creature tutors to recover Thrun in the case of a tuck so going more budget friendly on a tutor is a very easy fix. Due to a recent modern pod deck, this card shot up in price to around $30.00 recently. If budget is an issue I would suggest going with Brutalizer Exarch or Primal Command as more budget friendly options. Tutors are mostly used in an emergency to recover Thrun so going more budget friendly shouldn't be much of an issue.
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary I use him as mana ramp as he can give me a turn 3 Thrun and really powers out a lot of the bigger late game auras and lets me drop and equip equipment very quickly. I like him a lot but he isn't a necessity that cannot be replaced by a Rampant Growth effect for budget purposes. Cutting him will hurt Worldly Tutor a little though as well as its how I often ramp into a hand when I open with Worldly.
Snow-Covered Forest snow lands often cost $0.50 - $1.00 each. Luckily forests tend to be one of the cheaper snow lands. I primarily use these to allow me to use Mouth of Ronom in my deck so cutting that small piece of utility can save probably close to $10.00. I only run a half split of snow lands to ensure I hit some snow lands but if you still wanted to use this land, you could probably go as few as 5/6 snow lands in a list and still usually not have an issue with it especially if running some Rampant Growth effects.
Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers / Tower of the Magistrate / High Market These are some utility lands that while useful, I consider less useful than other things in the list. You can start saving yourself money when building on a budget by cutting all of the utility lands but these in particular I find to be more of a finishing touch adds than the other utility lands that I run in the list.
At this point, if you cut all of the above (I apologize as I am just throwing estimated guesses) but you should have the list down to probably the $250.00 -$300.00 range. You can obviously cut further from here as well. Thrun is really at his core just lands, ramp, and pump so you can build a Thrun list up from most any sort of collection. The fact that he is mono color means that you don't have to start out by dropping tons of money on the landbase which is a huge plus.
Strategy
Open Hands: generally speaking what I look for in an opening hand is 1) land to get me going 2) ramp to try to get a faster Thrun 3) ways to make thrun bigger soon after dropping him 4) card draw to get me going towards my midgame.
I usually try to mulligan out any sort of expensive buffs (Mythic Proportions and Eldrazi Conscription) out of hand. Most of the situational and or control cards tend to make their way out of my opening hand to try to go faster in the early game. Keep removal as you feel like you will be able to use shortly into the game but generally try to move the control out for means to get Thrun going in the early game if you can.
Early Game: Do everything you can to get Thrun into play as soon as you can. Try to drop equipment into play on your way up to dropping Thrun but the ramp game takes priority in the early game until you can drop Thrun.
Once Thrun is in play try to get him suited up quickly before people can get answers online. As much as possible keep regenerate mana up as people like to pop him off when they can but there are also a lot of really nice effects out there that allow regeneration such as Austere Command and Oblivion Stone.
Mid Game: You should have a few buffs out by now. Watch out for over extending your buffs on Thrun. Some of the worst effects for this type of deck are just clear non-land permanents out. Loosing all of his buffs with no cards in hand is one of the less fortunate things Thrun can encounter. There is such a thing as overextending your buffs due to this. Remember that there are multiple opponents so you still need to kill the remaining players even if dropping a buff means getting a kill, it can sometimes leaves you awkwardly overextended.
Late Game: If the games made it to the Late game either A) you played a bit safely and conservatively to try not to get blown out or B) your opponents have recovered or possibly are screwing you over. Thrun will goldfish some games from really nice and fast starts but in general it isn't the norm. Thrun isn't the fastest voltron out there so much as the most resilient one. Due to this it is expected that you will get drug into the later game if you don't just straight out roll everyone. Try to take things at a pace that will have you still in the game in the late game. Good early game threat assessment should hopefully leave you with opponents that are manageable at this phase of the game.
It might seem odd for me to talk about threat assessment in a primer but I feel that its a large question of how the deck will perform. Knowing your opponents and their decks will pay off in gold when it comes to threat assessment so I for one believe that you are at a disadvantage if you are using this deck in an unknown meta. You will be sort of obvious in your tactics in an unknown meta but your opponents tactics will be harder to gauge potentially just off of the first few turns. If you know the capabilities of your opponents decks your goal is to eliminate the person with the best chance to beat you in the drawn out game first. You want the last person standing to be the person you feel is the easiest to defeat in a drawn out late game. The people that potentially have tons of wraths and draw or combo off win conditions should be the first ones killed. These people unfortunately don't always go down easily just because you want them to first however the longer you put it off the harder you will have getting rid of them.
The best thing you can do is figure out the order that your opponents need to die and try to commit to this by the time you are swinging with Thrun. You can change your mind but its best to have this sort of plan of the order that your opponents should die in planned out by the first time you are swinging with Thrun. Switching targets halfway through killing someone is a good way to end up with two people half dead when someone wraths your board position out from under you.
Do not, attempt to be political and spread out your damage, or decide who dies first randomly. Unfortunately one of the strongest things you have going for you with Thrun as your commander is your explosive opening. If you waste this time in the game then your chances of winning will be diminished greatly. You need to be explosive and productive in your early turns. If this is not how you want to play then I would say you should probably not play an aggro deck.
Fogs: Fog effects can be very useful against opposing aggro decks. The big thing to understand though is that these effects are often dead cards in hand until the game builds up to the point where they help you stall it. They are also not useful against all styles of opposing decks as combo and stax style of decks will be a very bad opponent to be packing fogs against. They are however a very effective type of card against aggro and voltron decks. Moment's Peace, Tangle, Constant Mists, and Spike Weaver are generally speaking the effects in this category that I suggest looking at for this type of package. More detailed explanations can be found on them in my Card Options section.
Lures: Lure effects are a means of combat control that green is fairly good at. This type of effect can work well with abilities such as trample and are primarily effective on creatures without evasion such as Thrun. If you want to focus more on creature control in a Thrun deck then Lure effects can be effective fore ridding yourself of annoying utility creatures, commanders, and tokens.
Combat Tricks: there are a lot of cool little combat tricks you can use such as giving deathtouch, tapping, untapping, and forcing blockers that green has access to. Provoke, Lace with Moonglove, Spidery Grasp, and Irresistible Prey are among some of the better combat tricks that you can consider. Some of these can be as good as creature removal when used correctly. They might require more playing around with than Swords to Plowshares but they can also be surprisingly effective when timed correctly.
Resource Disruption: when most people think of resource especially land disruption they think of Armageddon and Obliterate type of effects. Green has access to several artifact as well as green disruption effects too such as Winter Orb, Static Orb, Storm Cauldron, Hall of Gemstone, and Ritual of Subdual. I run a number of these effects myself as I can potentially buy myself time where my opponents have a harder time developing their boards, drawing cards, and trying to disrupt my own position while these effects are in effect.
Power Buffs: equipment, auras, and everything else that makes Thrun big is important to consider. If he had a naturally larger size you might not need to consider making him bigger but as he stands, a 4/4 with no evasion has a hard time killing anyone. Its possible to look less at buffing him and more at disruption and control but in my experience results tend to vary a lot more on the disruption side of things for mono green. You might notice that some of the more powerful power buffs either don't add evasion as well or cost a lot of mana to drop. I have a large mix of buffs in the list due to what available buffs there are as well as you don't always need evasion on every buff because in general you only need one form of evasion on him at a time.
Evasion: thrun has no natural evasion so I find that being able to give him some form of evasion (flying, trample, unblockable, etc) helps for him to connect to players. Trample is the most common form of evasion that green has access to and it helps overcome smaller blockers. Combining Deathtouch + Trample turns most everything but tokens into very very small road bumps as you only need to assign a single point of damage with deathtouch before you start to trample. Unblockable / horsemanship / shadow are probably the best forms of evasion but they aren't on many green buffs and most of the buffs that you can find with them don't really provide any sort of power buff. If you can come across a form of evasion that allows for no blocks + power buffing then you have found the perfect evasion buff for thrun.
The Ramp Game: Looking at my list, you will realize that the ramp that I use in this deck is designed around casting Thrun sooner in the game. For example, I could play something like Kodama's Reach or Wood Elves which you might see in other lists, however due to the fact that they do not ramp into a faster Thrun I have decided against using them. There is a point of too much ramp however which I will mention because of the fact that Thrun has somewhat of a small natural body on him. If instead he had a body more like Silvos, Rogue Elemental where we might not need additional equipment to make him deadly we could run a much heavier ramp package focusing on pushing him into play faster. If you play primarily 1v1 games I think the amount of ramp you use actually becomes more important. In multiplayer games though having a turn 2 Thrun vs a turn 3/4 Thrun isn't necessarily as game breaking because you have three people to kill with him meaning by the time you get to the third person it is probably turn 8+ anyways in a good situation.
Overall I will just say that due to the design of Thrun, using small ramp that will speed him up and the plays immediately after a little is effective but I wouldn't overly focus on these because in multiplayer it will take you some time to kill everyone anyways and you can overkill the ramp package due to the fact that a vanilla Thrun is not that threatening looking on his own.
Draw: draw can keep us in the game. In 1v1 games I think it is a little less important as you can potentially come out swinging and kill your opponent right away but in multiplayer the chance of making it through all three opponents before they get established and or answer you once or twice is rare. Drawing more cards means that when you get answered you wont slow to a craw with nothing left in hand.
Graveyard Recovery: green has a lot of regrowth type effects. One big thing to realize about these effects is that they are dead until you have targets to cast them on. This means the more auras / equipment you use the less chance of being able to pick things back up before someone comes through and blows your board up. The more instants / sorcery buffs and answers you run the sooner you might be able to use them. Also, they are prone to graveyard hate impacting their effective use as well.
Larger Games - Being that we are sort of a fast aggro deck, having too many opponents is a bad thing for us. Generally speaking I don't like using this deck in a game bigger than 4 players. We are already not excessively fast but if you add more opponents it will take that much longer to get to other players and the chances of getting answered increase. This type of deck is best utilized in 2-4 player games or potentially in team based games like Emperor. If your meta likes playing 5 and 6+ player FFA games, using a commander like Thrun is a bad idea.
Clones - up until recently clones have been literally one of the biggest killers of hexproof commanders. Being that Thrun is so robust it was one of my worst enemies as I could do little to nothing against them. Recently though wizards announced a change to the rules of the game for legends to essentially keep opponents from killing legends with clones. This is a HUGE buff to hexproof commanders especially Thrun considering he is the most resilient of the hexproof commanders. There were essentially little to no defenses against clones that were reasonable to run so the change in this is a huge buff to this strategy.Hallowed Burial / Terminus considering the decklist is a creature light deck, tuck based wrath effects are very very bad for Thrun to run into. Essentially because these two cards exist, I run creature tutors in my decklist. If these two cards weren't running around I probably wouldn't even bother with creature tutors. Warp World could technically be also considered in this category too of cards that give us issues but its much later into the game generally speaking. To defend yourself from these type of effects you can consider in no particular order 1) Creature Tutors 2) Sacrifice Outlets to sacrifice Thrun to in response 3) ways in which to flicker Thrun out such as Cold Storage, Tawnos's Coffin, and Voyager Staff.
Sacrifice Effects - Some of the worst effects you can encounter is repeat sacrifice effects such as Sheoldred, Whispering One, Butcher of Malakir, Grave Pact, Thraximundar, and Savra, Queen of the Golgari. Generally I don't worry about them too much until you start having a continuous issue with them. Keep in mind you might be able to just stomp this player out before they get established if they are a recurring issue. Token spawning strategies work fairly well at combating these effects. You might also be able to use Tajuru Preserver to good value against these tactics but he is a fairly fragile creature unfortunately. I would say that splashing a token theme is probably the stronger defense against these tactics or simply removing them from the game first.
Noncreature Sweepers - these are like Oblivion Stone, Austere Command, and Pernicious Deed. The biggest issue with these is that they usually turn Thrun back into a 4/4 without evasion. They generally speaking kill card advantage against us more so than actually killing him. It can be very very crippling to try to come back against these effects if your card draw isnt working out for you. Playing cautiously and not trying to rush to kill everyone can keep you from over extending. Knowing your meta can help here as well and or if your meta doesn't run heavy on these helps too. You can also consider moving more towards +/+ token buffs for Thrun to evade some of these. Regrowth effects can also be a nice way to come back from these but just in general try not to overextend and try to push for larger solid buffs rather than relying on stacking a bunch of them on at once. If you see a lot of these effects try to stick to just 1-2 buffs for thrun at a time and try to push for a higher power level on average of your buffs. Smaller buffs will just result in larger card advantage casualties here.
No Regen Wraths - These will put you back to the command zone. It will also knock off the auras. The more wraths you see in your meta the less you will want to run auras and the more you will want to run equipment. Be careful not to over extend yourself on your buffs and try to play it safe with a good amount of card draw in these situations. Indestructible equipment such as Darksteel Plate and Shield of Kaldra and totem armors such as Boar Umbra, Snake Umbra, and Spider Umbra also wok well at defending from these type of strategies.
Tokens and ETB Utility - more than anything token swarms and just uitlity guys will get in the way of your damage output. They will emphasize the importance of evasion and even more towards flying, horsemanship, and unblockable evasions. Trample will still work here but they will be soaking up damage making it difficult to get much for progress done. We also have some issues defending ourselves from the token armies coming back at us so some cards such as Silent Arbiter / Crawlspace / The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale can help against them. Fog effects can also be useful since token armies tend to run Overrun type of effects.
Prison Term / Bound in Silence oddly these effects can be incredibly difficult to deal with. I once lent my rebel deck out and tried playing Thrun and realized that it was incredibly difficult to attempt to break through Bound in Silence since I needed to exile it somehow to free myself of it for good. Its an odd corner case situation but its really hard to break through. Generally speaking though most of these effects are difficult to get on Thrun in the first place for opponents and even if they do, we are green and can answer them. The worst by far is if they happen to be a rebel deck due to Bound in Silence.
Fogs - Fogs can also be a problem for this type of deck. Recurrable fogs like Spike Weaver and Constant Mists are incredibly difficult to answer in mono green. Generally speaking my answer to these is to try to gum up the lands and run my opponents out of resources. It is somewhat rare though to find a decks that establish reusable fogs early in games though but it does happen on occasion. You have to consider if you want to save them for last and accept that they will be established or try to keep pushing on them and see if their defenses will fall.
Card Options
Cards in this section represent optional selections for this deck. Cards that can be found within my own current decklist will be bolded. I tried to just pick the cards that I could see being potentially used in a Thrun list. Generally speaking if a card isn't listed here I just dont see the card making a Thrun list for one reason or another.
_________________________________ONE MANA_________________________________
Arbor Elf its cheap, it comes in early, and it ramps into a faster Thrun. Generally I like my ramp to either ramp into a turn two Thrun or not die to a creature wrath though. If you do have some issues with some edict based effects though picking up some mana dorks can help combat the edict effects.
Birds of Paradise its cheap, it comes in early, and it ramps into a faster Thrun. Generally I like my ramp to either ramp into a turn two Thrun or not die to a creature wrath though. If you do have some issues with some edict based effects though picking up some mana dorks can help combat the edict effects. The fact that it has flying means it can potentially take a hit from a flying commander which is a nice pickup in utility here. The other one drop mana dorks do just fine though but if you dont mind putting some money down its solid.
Brown Ouphe its an interesting controlling effect that can be activated for the same cost as Thrun's regeneration. Its fun as it can counter Oblivion Stones and Nevinyrral's Disk which is a nice bonus. I would say its a bit of a situational meta call but hes cool and interesting.
Elvish Pioneer another ramp option. The problem here is that I would consider this sort of like a budget Exploration / Burgeoning. Ideally I dont think he belongs at all but if you want to be ramping into thrun faster and cheaply its an option.
Fyndhorn Elves its cheap, it comes in early, and it ramps into a faster Thrun. Generally I like my ramp to either ramp into a turn two Thrun or not die to a creature wrath though. If you do have some issues with some edict based effects though picking up some mana dorks can help combat the edict effects.
Llanowar Elves its cheap, it comes in early, and it ramps into a faster Thrun. Generally I like my ramp to either ramp into a turn two Thrun or not die to a creature wrath though. If you do have some issues with some edict based effects though picking up some mana dorks can help combat the edict effects.
Spore Frog its cheap and its a decent deterrant. The hard part is that it can just disappear on you at really inconvenient times. I generally try not to run defensive creatures like this but if your meta lets you get away with deterrant creatures or runs creature removal light it can be fun. Generally speaking though the metas that run creature heavy that could use a fog also run a good amount of creature removal.
Ulvenwald Tracker this gives us reusable removal. The great thing too is that it costs the same to regenerate Thrun as to activate this. That means that we can keep up two mana and wait and see how things go before we commit to doing anything.
Argothian Enchantress really solid creature for an enchantress build. Having shroud adds some value to her in an enchantress deck. Being that this is green as well you can reliably tutor for her too which is very useful. I think she is probably one of the most important creatures for an enchantress list to run. Broken Fall and Molting Skin can be used as sort of draw engine with some of these ETB enchant triggers to loop them several times.
Ambush Viper its a cool creature that has some nice versatility to him. He can be used as instant speed removal, or be used to fight off an edict effect. Nobody expects the green player to drop an instant speed deathtoucher in on them. Unfortunately its an entirely defensive creature.
Deadly Recluse its a defensive creature that trades with whatever comes your way. It has reach as well so its a nice little pillow-fort creature. Unfortunately it serves nothing but a defensive measure so its a bit narrow and depending on if you see a lot of creature removal it can be less good.
Elvish Visionary it is a cheap creature that can be useful to fight edict effects, give you blockers, or just sort of move through your deck. It doesn't really have much synergy with what we are doing per say but it doesn't set you back much and it gives you some defense vs a few strategies. Generally speaking I would run Wall of Blossoms first as this deck doesn't have much that a 1/1 can do for it that a 0/4 doesn't do better.
Fauna Shaman if you find yourself running a good number of creatures this can be a solid option. It gives you versatility in your creatures but as I run my own list as a creature light list it has no place here. In general I almost always want to be running Survival of the Fittest before I consider this though.
Heart Warden this guy has the advantage of being able to ramp into Thrun and yet be sacrificed later for a card. His sacrifice is conveniently cheap as well fitting in with the two mana we usually want to keep up for a few options.
Overgrown Battlement this guy is a bit more defensive but still ramps into thrun. It works better with the more walls you run and there is actually several walls that could be worth running in here if you wanted to.
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary he ramps into an early Thrun and powers me to big mana quickly. This is about the only mana doubler that I like in this deck because of the fact that he still ramps into Thrun. He works really well too if you like running some effects to screw with mana too.
Sakura-Tribe Elder he ramps into thrun and gives me a body to do things with. I tend to tutor for him if I get stuck on lands but I like how later in the game he can buy me a block and still get a land. Generally speaking this sort of creature just gets a lot more use than a Rampant Growth does.
Scavenging Ooze he gives me pinpoint grave removal in a tutor-able creature and a fatty who gets bigger and gains me life. I like the versatility he gives all in all and being tutor-able is great as green doesn't have a lot of tutor-able grave hate effects.
Shinen of Life's Roar this gives a temporary Lure effect for thrun if you need it or you can use it as a creature to taunt for thrun to make him unblockable.
Tajuru Preserver if you run into a lot of edicts regularly then I might suggest picking this guy up. Unfortunately he dies to like any other removal but it can buy you time against something like a Savra deck or something of the sort.
Vine Trellis essentially the same as Overgrown Battlement assuming you dont run multiple defenders. It ramps into Thrun earlier and gives a nice blocker + some resistance to edicts.
Viridian Zealot artifact / enchantment hate. Its useful that its on a creature as its tutorable and cheap. It works against Torpor Orb effects or while using our own Torpor Orb which is nice as well.
Wall of Blossoms a good little blocker that gives some good card advantage. He draws when he comes in and he can block fairly well. Generally speaking Thrun takes over the offense for this deck so having a blocker can help on defense.
Wall of Roots really sort of a cool creature as it can ramp into thrun and other things. I can get multiple mana from it over a turn duration as well. I often like to keep like two mana up when I am done with my turn for optional things. I can use a mana from this wall on my turn and use another mana during someone else's turn to regen / do whatever as well.
Carven Caryatid I would likely be running both Wall of Blossoms and Elvish Visionary before considering this guy but these cheap draw effect creatures are nice to give some blockers and edict defense. I probably wouldnt go as far as to run this card though unless you run into a lot of edicts regularly.
Caustic Wasps This is some nice repeat artifact removal. I would say that its a lot better against metas that run less creatures. The less creatures metas run usually makes less creature removal. I like this sort of thing to fight against some combo heavy metas as blowing up stones and utility artifacts is really solid. Its sort of slow to get value but it continues to generate great hate and stalls opponents artifacts.
Eternal Witness great versatile recovery card. Its on a stick to boot and while that doesn't matter that much here, its still a great card and a good target for creature tutors.
Junk Diver there are some great artifacts in the list and depending on how much hate you run into having some recursion helps. It also can buy you a turn against some voltron commanders potentially.
Loaming Shaman optional graveyard hate if you find yourself not liking the ooze or his price tag. I personally always like the option of exiling graveyards rather than just cycling them back in. Still hes a solid option and a much easier budget one. I like having at least one tutorable grave hate so if you dont run the Ooze, I would recommend having this guy.
Mindbender Spores when facing down some voltron decks on a regular basis this might be one of the best deterrents you could use. Its a creature with flying so it can block most anything and we can tutor for it. Then it proceeds to buy us 4 turns beyond its own block where they cant untap. Nobody is going to swing a commander into this so it makes a great pillow fort. Generally speaking I dont like defensive creatures but if you play against some voltron that gives you problems this seems like a promising option.
Ohran Viper it draws cards and can act as a pseudo deathtouch blocker if need be. I like the versatility it brings and more card draw that doesn't depend on Thrun in play is really nice to have. Don't forget we have tons of buffs that if need be you can use on him to punch through for draw.
Sylvok Replica removal on a stick that isn't affected by Torpor Orb and recovers from things like Buried Ruin if you run it. I like this guy but at the same time you can pick up more versatility with something like Brutalizer Exarch. He is an interesting choice though but I don't really value bodies that much in this deck.
Tempting Licid its sort of cool because it can act as a Lure that can dodge enchantment removal. You can disable it as well if you dont want the lure anymore. Unfortunately still needs to tap to attach otherwise it would be totally crazy cool.
Verduran Enchantress another important and powerful creature for enchantress builds. Argothian Enchantress is going to be a lot better but redundancy is always good. This will keep the draw power going in an enchantress deck. Broken Fall and Molting Skin can be used as sort of draw engine with some of these ETB enchant triggers to loop them several times. Plus they can defend this enchanter due to her being a creature without shroud.
Viridian Corrupter artifact removal on a stick. What I like here is that there is always a chance of just infect murdering someone and shrinking an attacker by 2 is a lot better than the other 2/2 options that do the same thing. There are two other three mana green creatures with the same effect but I didnt bother mentioning them as I think that this creature is just better for the most part.
Forgotten Ancient nice big buff over time. My biggest problem was that if he would do anything at all was entirely uncertain. Hes cool and gets Thrun huge however I found him somewhat unreliable and slow as it would take at least a whole turn of him and Thrun being in play to get some tokens going on Thrun then you still need trample to get through.
Glissa Sunseeker reusable artifact destruction. I am usually for fast effects however against combo or heavy mana stone decks I could see this being solid. It also gives a nice first strike blocker but generally I like creatures I can use right away for at least a single removal rather than relying on value over time removal.
Krosan Vorine its a nice bit of removal. The fact that it cant be multi blocked means that anything small we can take out with this guy. Plus dont forget that we run tons of pump in this deck so potentially we could pump and provoke some nice removal from him. I keep meaning to actually get some good playtime with him in but keep worrying that its a little slow and small.
Master of the Wild Hunt he gives some really cool control to the deck. Free tokens every turn and the ability to fight other creatures is great. Remember that you only need to trample once damage exceeds lethal so if someone blocks you can always have a few wolves fight something to get damage going on the blocker. After having played the deck with him for a long time I ended up cutting him from the list because he dropped in at an odd mana. This deck wants to push Thrun as a priority so I found myself dropping Thrun and trying to bring him up to speed over dropping a creature like this.
Oracle of Mul Daya I like oracle as sort of an advantage engine but its sort of slow in here as a 4 drop. I want to have lots of topdeck manipulators as well to set this up correctly. I dont always like my opponents to know what I am drawing either as occasionally it makes them make preemptive moves against me.
Silent Arbiter he has a good effect that works well against tokens and swarm decks and in favor of voltron decks. Unfortunately being an artifact creature makes him very fragile from a lot of removal out there. He gives defense but only as long as he can stick around. I dont particularly like defensive measure creatures as they disappear at inopportune times.
Solemn Simulacrum ramp plus draw but unfortunately he is rather slow to kick in. I generally look for ramp to speed up Thrun and sadly he just doesn't fit that idea. Hes a good creature all around but he isn't ramping when I want to be.
Wickerbough Elder artifact / enchantment removal and it works through Torpor Orb which is nice. Generally speaking though I like the deathtouch + ability to hit lands though of Acidic Slime over this guy.
Willow Satyr really sort of a random effect for green to have. Sadly his effect is slow to use and works the best with sac outlets and haste. Its a really cool effect for a mono green deck to have though but I am mostly interested in fast results.
Acidic Slime solid removal with a deathtouch body. He is a good deterrent and has good versatility. The downside is that we run Torpor Orb and 5 mana to blow something up can be a bit expensive in comparison for green.
Bellowing Tanglewurm Intimidation is an interesting evasion. Unfortunately, green creatures are plenty popular in EDH and I would generally say most tokens tend to be green as well. I guess this would be a meta card if usable at all but intimidation in mono green seems really hit and miss.
Genesis creature recovery. I run a very creature light deck and getting him into the graveyard seems like an issue. If you wanted to run him in a deck with more creatures he could be an option. Getting him to the graveyard in mono green can be done by drawing over hand size limit or by casting him into a sac outlet. Worst case you can slow roll him and use him as a pillow fort effect for a while.
Hystrodon some card draw but his cost isn't real low and his power isn't real high. He can push through some ETB chumps but beyond that I dont really know... I think I like Ohran Viper more thanks to the deathtouch and cheaper casting cost.
Kalonian Hydra if you want to go a little bit of a token theme this guy offers a large buff option for that style of play. I like him as a potential backup wincon as well but being that we have few creatures in play he might be extra vulnerable to creature removal. He has nice synergy though if you are already running heavy +/+ counter themed but I don't see ever running him before Forgotten Ancient is in the list.
Precursor Golem its sort of cool as you get three of them in one. It works really cool with anything you might cast on a creature such as Hunter's Insight or Tower Above. Unfortunately there aren't a ton of spells to take advantage of it here but it still gums up the board decently and is interesting.
Seedborn Muse The more tap mana to do things during other people's turns you have the more useful this is. Sadly it doesn't really have a lot of direct interaction with Thrun beyond keeping regenerate mana up so you would need a lot of mana intensive abilities sort of in my mind to make this good.
Silklash Spider some solid flying defense. Its sort of slow though as it isn't cheap to drop. Still if you run into things like Storm Herd regularly its a good call. Generally though I just need pinpoint flying removal though but it does still block as a 2/7 which is nice.
Stingerfling Spider flying spot removal. Its not overly impressive but it does give some quick work and leaves a reach blocker after answering a flyer. I am not overly impressed with it though.
Wolfir Silverheart a nice sized buff for Thrun. Generally though I dont like having creatures trying to buff Thrun as I think creatures are the easiest thing to remove. Still, its nice to have an option of a creature to tutor for as a buff. It doesn't give trample but +4/+4 is a decent buff.
Arachnus Spinner this might seem like a joke of a creature but honestly this is great anti commander tech. It can come into play and immediately tutor into a lock down effect. It can recover its lock-down effect every turn as well so even if the creature is huge we can lock it up. Obviously if you run this you are going to want to include Arachnus Web. The great thing about Arachnus Web is that it can lock down tap ability commanders as well. Believe me when I say that I have put some consideration into this guy. There is no wait before you can tutor into the aura and it can be repeated over and over from the graveyard. Its a solid piece of control tech for sure.
Brutalizer Exarch it can answer problematic non-creatures and it can tutor for creatures. Its a good backup to go get thrun or answer something but I decided that I liked the versatility of Primal Command a bit more than I like the Exarch. The fact that I get a grave hate option on the command seems like a nice pickup for the list. Still I think the Exarch is a decent pick but we dont really abuse creatures and a 3/3 doesn't really matter in here.
Duplicant creature spot removal is hard to come by in green. This gives me an option to exile as well so there is no recursion. Its useful to have these in case you see an eldrazi monster come along for sure. A good portion of the creature removal in this deck is based off of Thrun so a bit of standalone removal is nice to have.
Kamahl, Fist of Krosa potentially he could be used as an anti sweeper effect and a reusable overrun effect. The big issue is that he is really mana intensive to try to drop and do anything with. If you see very little spot removal or heavy sweepers I would recommend playing around with him as he can punish people who are too sweeper heavy.
Steel Hellkite another solid option to remove tokens, creatures, buffs, whatever. I like the things he can remove and luckily if he gets stolen destroying an artifact creature is actually quite manageable for this deck. I think he has potential but unfortunately he is a slow to kick in value over time creature that everyone else wants to remove.
Wurmcoil Engine versatile creature that can serve defense or offense. It is hard to effectively remove and it gives an option to gain some life as well.
Avenger of Zendikar Sort of an all in one winning machine. It provides a lot of bodies as well as pumping them up. Sadly its easily answered and if the avenger itself is answered we have little ways of buffing the tokens. Its a lot of power and it is usually the strongest in an answer light meta.
Hornet Queen One big defensive no stick. Other than wrathing the board its really hard to unravel all of these flying defensive tokens. This is a good option against aggro and voltron strategies and really bad against combo strategies.
Krosan Tusker It gives some easy card advantage in its cycle effect. It doesn't ramp us at all though its just a small bit of card advantage and it sort of lacks versatility. He almost never sees actual play in game unless someone uses a Living Death either.
Pelakka Wurm A decent beater with some lifegain / card draw involved. He is cool and a solid budget card but there seems to always be better things to be doing. He is never really amazing but I like a lot of the things he can do. He might also be sort of a pet card of mine though. I always like him but can never justify running him.
Skarrg Goliath its a big meaty buff for Thrun on a creature. What I like here though is that he can only be countered by Stifle effects and Naturalize doesn't screw with him either. Considering how hard to screw with Thrun at instant speed we already have set up this gives a great finisher effect that most people don't see coming and can do little about. As a downside though several of the better tutors this deck can run put creatures directly into play rather than in hand. Its also a one shot effect that will likely just accomplish what Berserk does anyways for a lot more mana.
Spearbreaker Behemoth indestructible creature that hands out indestructibility. With the change to legend rules its sort of cool but considering that tuck wraths are one of our biggest concerns and this doesn't help against them its hard to justify. If you manage to see a lot of wraths that just disallow regeneration this might be worth considering but I just see the defensive capabilities of him in this deck to be a bit narrow. What he offers just seems to be a little low for this deck.
Tornado Elemental this is a really nice flying creature hate card. I really like this guy especially if you spring him on a Kalia deck as it just swats down just about everything flying. The ability to send damage through is useful for hitting planeswalkers too occasionally. Generally speaking though my complaint with him is how much he costs and that its only a one time thing. Often if you are having troubles with flyers its a continuous issue with flyers.
Craterhoof Behemoth ok, I honestly don't know how anyone would be running this guy in a Thrun deck. If you do somehow end up with a bunch of bodies randomly its not bad. Still.... I don't know how you would end up with a bunch of bodies to make this pump decent. His effect is ideally sort of what Thrun is looking for but you would need to be quite token oriented for it to work here.
Patron of the Orochi he lets us untap Thrun as well as mana to do things with him. He is interesting but super slow and expensive. Plus he untaps other green player's permanents. He tends to be a good option for big mana dump type of decks. Seeing how this deck is built with a generally low curve I think you would be hard pressed to include him with a deck that resembled my own list.
Skarrg Goliath generally speaking the only thing you will be doing with this is his Bloodrush option. Giving Thrun an uncounterable +9/+9 and trample at instant speed sounds totally sick though. I haven't gotten around to playtesting with this yet but it holds potential. I think its best though if your opponents are running some heavy counterspells or instant speed artifact / enchantment removal. Still its great that this is on a creature as it gives some potential power to things such as creature to hand tutors.
Terastodon he gives a lot of removal in a single card. The elephants that you hand out can be slightly annoying though as well due to the fact that you need to usually trample over them with thrun. It is also rather slow to cast and often overkill for situations that arise. If you find yourself needing to clear out a lot of targets on average though it can provide a decent effect. Watch out for all those elephants though as they are annoying to deal with.
Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger he gives a nice mana buff but more importantly he screws with opponents lands. I like decks that use tons of mana and or cheat him into play in some way or another. I find him usually a bit lackluster but he could be an option in a resource disruption plan. I just find him too easy to answer and continue from and all of your opponents should be focusing on removing him.
Woodfall Primus the persist is nice as he is a robust creature. He also makes for a less painful Bribery targets than something like Terastodon as your opponents will only get a single remove trigger and it will come back to you on the Persist. I like him more though with sacrifice outlets though.
Artisan of Kozilek Assuming you run a higher creature count this guy could be a solid addition to get some rez value in. I don't really run much for creatures though and I would think you need to be pushing close to 20 or so creatures before you consider something like this.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre I am always worried about running this guy in a deck that has problems with answering indestructible creatures. It is really high on the curve as well for a deck that tends to focus on fast ramping too but its a nice alt wincon with some nice control aspects to him.
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth He is really expensive but draws cards and gives a good alt wincon. I guess I like him a little more in here considering I don't know how I would answer Ulamog if he got stolen from me but even then I would have a very hard time answering Kozilek still. Also its very high on the curve and my ramp is early game small ramp. It would be very late before I got this guy out which I am not as much a fan of here.
Chalice of the Void it could give you an option to lock someone out of a combo piece or commander. Sadly it probably has to come down well after they can cast their commander the first time since you have to pay twice the card's cost. Still this is cool tech especially if someone focuses on one specific combo in their deck.
Chrome Mox it can ramp into a faster Thrun. Considering the fact that Thrun costs 4 mana though generally speaking its better to just go with a 1-2 mana option instead as we generally cant come out fast enough to make this effective.
Mana Crypt Turn Two Thrun whoooooo. The big draw back here is the price tag on obtaining one. Still.... its amazing.
Mox Diamond it can ramp into a faster Thrun. Considering the fact that Thrun costs 4 mana though generally speaking its better to just go with a 1-2 mana option instead as we generally cant come out fast enough to make this effective.
Tormod's Crypt its a nice graveyard hate option. I prefer to be able to easily recover or tutor into my grave hate if possible though so I went with another option.
Brittle Effigy instant speed exile removal. It doesn't rely on Thrun which is really nice but paying 4 for an exile is a bit rough.
Expedition Map Keep in mind that Sylvan Scrying does this effect for less mana between dropping and popping it. Other than that though, we run some really nice utility lands so its not too shabby. I run it as a means to try to ramp into a faster Thrun in the early game or go get a nice utility land later. The versatility of these effects is fairly good.
Grafdigger's Cage its actually solid hate but unfortunately its sort of an odd effect that can really be hit and miss. It only effects like two creature tutors in here though so it can be solid. Its hard to tell when its going to be solid though so in general I dont use it much of anywhere. It would be a good sideboard card though for this deck assuming your meta runs such things.
Infiltration Lens solid draw effect. Thrun ends up getting blocked a lot to soak damage even if you do get him evasion. This works as psudo evasion though as well as some people would rather take his damage than give you cards. It has great synergy as well with Lure type of effects to give some power draw as well if you want to include a package for that.
Mana Vault fast ramp. Turn two Thrun yeaaaaaaaa. Its not as good as Mana Crypt or Sol Ring but its a lot cheaper to obtain a copy which is nice.
O-Naginata cheap equipment is nice. It gives Thrun a nice power buff plus trample. I like how its cheap to cast and equip as well. Technically something like Loxodon Warhammer has a better effect however due to the amount of mana between dropping and equipping it, it ends up costing too much mana to handle whereas this equipment can be dropped and equipped in one shot very easily and cleanly.
Pithing Needle its solid for stalling an ability commander or disabling parts of combos. Sadly it must be played preemptively and generally can only hurt one commander. If you regularly have issues with an ability commander though its a nice option to hate on them.
Relic of Progenitus graveyard hate option. I dont much care that it hits my own bin but its still a solid grave hate effect.
Scrabbling Claws another solid grave hate option. Honestly most of the time it does the trick fine and it can slow maul a graveyard too.
Sensei's Divining Top generally speaking I dont care for top-deck manipulation unless I have consistent shuffle effects. I just dont run enough shuffles to feel like it would continue to improve my draws.
Sol Ring fast ramp. Turn two Thrun yeaaaaaaaa. It also has no downsides and taps for 2 mana. Plus they are cheap to get now days.
Triangle of War its fun in the fact that you can fight at instant speed. Sadly though it costs a bit more if you intend to use it right away.
Altar of Dementia Its a cheap sac outlet to sac thrun to in the case of a tuck wrath. The mill is mostly forgettable but self milling can increase recursion options as well. You might be better off using more creature tutors than sac outlets though.
Coldsteel Heart Its cheap, it ramps into Thrun, it helps against land destruction and or land manipulation effects that we might run here.
Contagion Clasp Pseudo removal but I think more importantly it has the proliferate option. If you were to run more token buff options for Thrun this could be interesting. Still its a rather small effect so I think it would probably be more of a theme / budget option than anything.
Culling Dais Sac outlet for Thrun in a tuck wrath. Still.... its not that productive outside of that in here. You might be better off just running a creature tutor.
Cursed Totem This is an interesting hate card. It screws with Thrun's regenerate ability as well as several of the utility creatures in the deck as well though. I think it is interesting but I don't know if it is worth building around. Still, if you need some meta hate for ability commanders it could definitely be considered in addition to things like Pithing Needle and Damping Matrix.
Defense Grid This is a great card to fight counterspell / draw go type of decks with. Generally speaking it will make most things for them just not an option. It screws with some of our own instant spells as well and can give a combo deck an easy way to just win on their turn with opposition having a harder time countering. Still if you go up against a lot of instant speed control its a great option. You might consider cutting into some of the instants and running Hall of Gemstone with it if you go this route.
Fellwar Stone cheap stone, the downside here is that it doesn't work well in Ritual of Subdual and is situational based upon what your opponents run. It could potentially not give you green mana so I prefer the 2 mana stones that tap for green unconditionally.
Mask of Memory solid card draw equipment that works great with trample. The discard a card is minimal considering it draws two cards on connect so its more than just filtering which I love.
Mind Stone a solid 2 mana stone. It can sac itself for a draw which is really solid but I find that green stones are good to have as well so I can run more utility lands. Ritual of Subdual being in the deck also encourages colored stones over colorless ones.
Moss Diamond a solid 2 mana stone. It works well with land disruption effects as well as it gives colored mana and ramps into a faster Thrun.
Nim Deathmantle evasion plus recursion options. If your meta starts running no regenerate wraths more heavily this can be an option to consider. Keeping 4 mana up is sort of rough but it gives more protection and pump + evasion to Thrun which is nice. It works amazingly in combination with Greater Good as well.
Null Rod sort of a meta hate style of card. I would encourage you to adjust your own artifact package in order to run this as well as potentially running it with Damping Matrix. It can work well against mana stones though but its sort of a meta call / theme you need to build around.
Powder Keg its a nice removal effect. It works well against token decks, fast mana stone decks, and decks like Edric which need a lot of cheap dudes in play. I prefer this over Ratchet Bomb due to the fact that they cost the same mana and tick up at the same rate but this one never has a dead time where it is tapped and vulnerable to removal.
Ratchet Bomb similar to Powder Keg it can work well against token decks and a lot of other fast / cheap mana stuff. In general I think the Keg is better of the two but both are solid effects.
Star Compass another cheap mana stone. The downside here is that we need to have the ability to tap for green mana to use it. If we are screwed on colored mana from a bad start or Ritual of Subdual it doesn't work. Thus I try to stick to the 2 mana stones that naturally tap for green.
Torpor Orb solid hate for ETB creature decks. We have a few creatures that this affects but generally very very few. It tends to draw a lot of hate but its such a strong effect. I just wish I could tutor for it... putting it on legs would be amazing.
Trailblazer's Boots solid evasion. I cant think of many if any decks that this deck would have an issue with that this wouldn't give evasion against. Sadly, evasion alone isn't that desirable to spend a whole card on.
Umezawa's Jitte this gives removal options to Thrun or big pump options. Every connect can give him +4/+4 on his next attack. Generally speaking I wouldn't bother stockpiling many counters from this as if it gets blown up gaining life is not very desirable.
Winter Orb land disruption can be really solid when we have a somewhat low curve to the deck and can assemble Thrun up very quickly to be a threat. I never see the dang thing but its good disruption to people's continuous ramp / mana hungry plans.
Crawlspace generally speaking I would say that this is an anti token / aggro card. I dont much care for it in the fact that it needs to still be in play when it comes to attack step to work. I think there are better cards out there for keeping the token / aggro decks off your back than this.
Crucible of Worlds solid against land destruction effects as well as in combination of fetchland tactics. If you find yourself getting your utility lands blown up a lot it can also be useful. Generally speaking if you are going to run this I would encourage you to invest in a fetchland package as well.
Crystal Ball scry can be a very useful effect in manipulating your draws. I currently have a lot of draw effects in this deck though but I do like this effect. If you find yourself not being able to rely on the Thrun centric draw effects though this can be an option to examine. I tend to like this effect over things like Sensei's Divining Top in decks that dont have a ton of shuffle effects.
Damping Matrix its a nice meta hate / style of deck option. You have to really sort of design your list arround these type of cards in mind but in general you want to look at running this with some combination of Null Rod and Cursed Totem.
Darksteel Plate indestructibility can help against combat and non tuck / exile wraths. Generally speaking there aren't a ton of wraths that fall into the no regen that aren't tuck / exile though.
Diviner's Wand it gives flying, pump, and the ability to draw cards off of it. Sadly the draw effect on it is very expensive for the return it gives. Its an interesting option to draw cards for the turn off of other effects which turns into a bigger Thrun but it seems like a bit much to really expect.
Fireshrieker double strike is totally backbreaking. I push trample on a lot of my stuff as well so even swinging with a 6 powered double strike Thrun is a very fast clock. Its more acceptable on its mana cost as well since Thrun costs 4 mana and this costs 5 to drop + equip making for a nice follow up to dropping him or slow rolling it in before he comes in. It is really nice in a buff heavy list but you usually get more value out of dropping your other buffs before it then dropping the Shrieker after he is buffed up for a really surprisingly powerful punch.
Kill Switch great meta hate style of card. Most of the artifacts in here don't really need to be untapped so it works great against artifact mana decks. It seems like a meta call though to me as I could see this being either really effective or really a dud. It has potential to have some solid synergy with Static Orb as well though.
Kusari-Gama an expensive fire-breathing effect and a means to spread his damage over all creatures the blocking player controls. Generally speaking if people are blocking Thrun they are dropping what they can in his way to stall him so I don't really see this being that productive unless you are also running more Provoke effects.
Loxodon Warhammer solid buff with trample and lifegain tagged onto it. Generally speaking though, I feel like the equip cost is a bit high for what you get from it. I like O-Naginata a little more due to this. If you ramp into Thrun at all Loxodon Warhammer gets weird as you have to drop it one turn and equip it the next. If you are slow rolling into Thrun its not as bad as you can drop it before him but I dont care as much for the 3 mana 3 to equip stuff due to that.
Mimic Vat we are running creature light so if you run this you will need to rely on opponents creatures to give you value here. I have always found it sort of slow to get started and in a deck that doesn't really answer creatures nicely I don't much care for this sort of thing.
Nemesis Mask Lure on an equipment. Sadly its expensive to drop and equip so you might consider just running an actual Lure instead. I have often questioned if these effects might be useful however more often than not the creatures hitting play are already blocking Thrun and it would mostly just work the turn it comes down then people would play around it.
Oblivion Stone versatile wrath. You can sit behind it as well if you want to play some politics.
Orb of Dreams resource disruption tactics. This can screw with people as new lands come in tapped and fetchlands are really painful. Dropping blockers in is slow as well. Its hard to think two turns out as well.
Phyrexian Portal another interesting card drawing tool. You have to be ok with it not always turning out great but it can potentially dig is deep for useful cards. This deck isn't a big mana deck which is a downside for this effect since its generally a pay tons of mana for useful things effect. Most opponents will try to split it so the useful or strong cards are all in the same stack so you have a 50% chance of getting good things then you only get one of them and the others get shuffled back in. Still, its a cool card draw tool to look at in a deck where you don't need any specific cards to win so much as just needing more cards.
Puppet Strings tap or untap is useful to have. This let Thrun smash through or untap him to defend us. It can also be used on opponents creatures so that things like Tower Above, Provoke, and Revenge of the Hunted connect assuming they aren't tap ability creatures.
Ring of Gix essentially another Icy Manipulator. I would generally say that its worse than Icy Manipulator though due to its echo. Puppet Strings could potentially be better as well depending on what you need it for.
Sculpting Steel It can copy other artifacts which is fairly simple. Its nice to copy solid artifacts of ours but a lot of times those nice ones dont last long. I go back and forth on how I feel about it but its nice in really artifact heavy / ramp decks. I don't quite like it here though.
Static Orb another resource denial tactic. It has the advantage of not affecting you if it is tapped so if you run Icy Manipulator, Kill Switch, Ring of Gix type of effects remember you can tap it down before you untap. I don't worry too much about making it one sided but even how it stands, the untapping of only two permanents is really solid to just slow the game down and allows us get more beats in potentially.
Strata Scythe this can give a very large buff. It lacks trample though but it also takes opponents lands into consideration as well with this. I wouldn't run any snow lands if you want this to work out though. I didn't like where it hit on the mana to drop and equip in the same turn though and it lacks trample.
Sunstone solid fog permanent. You will want to probably run mostly all snow lands if you play this. There is the downside of it being a target for removal. However it also gives an incentive not to come at you as long as it sticks. Keep in mind that artifacts are only slightly more difficult to remove than creatures (Spike Weaver) but a lot harder to tutor for. It has its pros and cons for sure.
Sword of Feast and Famine untapping lands can be really important. It opens us up to regenerate on opponents turns, set up more things in our second main, and the protections are quite relevant for evasion. It is really nice if you are going somewhat light on your auras, instants, and sorcery buffs of thrun. I saw more promising results from being more disruption based with this when I had a lower number of buffs for thrun but keep in mind you cant cast things on him when he is pro green and auras will fall off to its equip.
Sword of Fire and Ice card draw, evasion, and removal all on an equipment that buffs Thrun. I really like what this sword does but the protections are sadly really not great for Thrun given the other color options to make him connect.
Sword of Vengeance this is a solid offense + defense equipment. It allows us to attack out and still defend ourselves. Trample + power buff + first strike are all very great abilities as well for Thrun. I really dislike how much it costs to drop plus equip but its been one of the more potent expensive equipments so far.
Tangle Wire another resource denial tactic. Generally speaking though, I like this a lot more with decks that can run away with a few turns. It deteriorates and falls apart on its own so it could be nice just for buying some time to hit people with Thrun however he tends to do fairly well the first few turns he is out anyways.
Erratic Portal Potential disruption against opponents or a means to save Thrun from wraths / tucks. I think it is cool but at the same time a creature tutor does the same without as many questionable aspects to them.
Grappling Hook Double Strike is totally crazy and the fact that it can force blockers as well seems cool. Still.... I think the double strike is mostly the only thing huge on this and it costs too much to drop and equip. Fireshrieker could potentially be a lot better due to its smaller cost + equip costs.
Icy Manipulator this can give some valuable disruption to blockers / attackers / resources. It seems best to me against voltron commanders especially flying ones. Keeping a commander like Kaalia from attacking could be totally game breaking assuming you could lock her up fast enough.
Jester's Cap this is a great tool to fight against combo decks with. The better you know your opponents decks as well the better it is as you really need to tear apart the best of their combos so know which pieces to strip to be effective with something like this.
Nevinyrral's Disk its a nice sweeper effect however I have on more than one occasion had issues with the fact that it comes in tapped and thus is sort of slow to be available. Its nice though if you can set it up while ahead as it is really daunting to play into however its really bad when you need it while doing poorly. I like Oblivion Stone a lot more due to the comes in tapped issue.
Nova Pentacle being so creature light is actually really good for something like this. Also, you get to pick the opponent that chooses the target of the damage so this can work as a great deterrent from opposing voltron commanders.
Portcullis this is an odd means of creature control. You need to get Thrun in before this and then it can control future creatures coming in. Sadly they still trigger ETB triggers so its really bad against ETB creature decks and fairly good against token strategies. In general I don't really see it being all that playable though overall. There just seem to be better means in which to do what it achieves. The worst case would be if you had this in play and someone kills Thrun. From there you might not be able to replay him and that would be really bad.
Power Matrix it gives flying evasion + trample + first strike. There is a small power buff as well and it doesnt cost mana to equip either. Its a nice buff but I found the buff aspect a bit small overall for its mana cost.
Smokestack assuming you wanted to go more of a stax theme here. You could go with some fast token tactics as well and rely on opponents loosing early game resources. Thrun doesn't really have much for natural affinity for these type of tactics other than just being a hard to remove beat stick though. This would be a bit of a stretch in my mind and likely not the best commander for these type of tactics.
Tawnos's Coffin it can save Thrun from wraths or hold someone's creature / commander up for some time. I think its a really cool effect but I worry about how much it costs to drop and equip. Its really cool though that it keeps auras and tokens on him though. Its interesting if nothing else but mana cost is worrisome.
Vedalken Orrery flash can allow you to play around things like Wraths and such. Due to the fact that this deck requires several attacks and thrun to stick around I haven't found it overly productive. I like it more for alpha strike type of decks where taking pseudo two turns in a row is really backbreaking. Generally speaking though, buffs need to be applied to Thrun prior to attacking or in the attack phase, so I haven't really found it too productive for keeping my mana up.
Memory Jar Seeing a new hand can be very useful. I don't run a ton of cards to pitch to the graveyard for good value though and this deck isn't built around huge mana. Its nice that I dont have a ton of really expensive things in my list so I should be able to get a few effects off or one really big effect from this. The downside currently is that I am not a big ramp deck so it can be hard to spit out a lot of cards in one turn with this and it is vulnerable to removal until I can untap and use it.
Mind's Eye solid card draw that doesn't rely on Thrun. It feels sort of clunky due to how much mana you usually want when you drop this but I cant always rely on Thrun reliant draw to get me there.
Pariah's Shield since Thrun can regenerate we can easily ship him the damage and just regenerate. This equipment is really expensive to drop and put on though plus you need to be able to regenerate afterwards and its not that hard for most aggro decks to deal with a single artifact to get past you. Still, its a cool fog like effect that you can look at using.
Predator, Flagship the option of flying evasion for thrun or to fly a creature to block. You can use it diplomatically as well if you want and it can destroy creatures as well. Its nice but its slow and expensive to use. It gives slow value as well being that its sort of expensive to drop as well as use.
Worldslayer the only ways I really see to use this card is either to 1) Darksteel Plate Thrun 2) Indestructable mana sources to regenerate aka Darksteel Citadel + Darksteel Ingot 3) Destroy Worldslayer in response to its trigger and regenerate Thrun. Overall its sort of gimmicky and slow but its mean.
Argentum Armor this gives great removal and a really sick buff. The problem is that this is stupidly hard to drop and equip in the same turn. On top of that, its damn scarry to think that it gets hooked up to Thrun... Generally speaking I dont like using this equipment because it never seems to last long enough to get an activation. Still, I would run this over something like Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre in here. Its sort of a high risk high reward style of card. On the upside here, Thrun is hard to target so for the most part you are just putting it on opponents to answer the armor in a turn rotation.
Staff of Nin card draw and potential spot removal. The pings from this are nice for removing chump blockers or trampling over sooner. Pinging for one damage can be surprisingly useful and extra card draw is always welcome in my book.
Akroma's Memorial solid evasion and haste. The problem I have with it is that it doesn't increase Thrun's output really any more than just giving him un-blockable. Its cool stuff but I moved away from it due to the high cost, fear factor, while it never really did much for output. People would smash it up and I just couldn't get the kind of value from it I wanted to see to keep it around.
Spine of Ish Sah removal that is actually sort of cool with the more artifact sweepers you see in your meta. Generally speaking this is better than Desert Twister but it still doesn't exile targets so I run Karn Liberated over it.
Burgeoning another means of getting a turn two Thrun. Sadly it involves some card disadvantage but in general I think this sort of effect is a lot stronger than the Mox options. It is one of those effects that's really solid turn one to ramp yourself into a fast Thrun but looses its power quickly. I like it in decks that intend to push for hyper fast kills. I have found though with Thrun its hard to accelerate reliably into those excessively fast wins in this means though.
Elephant Grass an interesting deterrent effect but with a limited lifetime to it. I really wish it could have just been a Propaganda effect but I suppose its better that green doesn't just have a blue / white effect straight up. I don't really like how temporary it is as well as the fact that it ties up resources and is only a deterrent. I would rather stick to a handful of fogs.
Exploration similar to Burgeoning in the fact that it is best for pushing for really fast starts. It is more useful than Burgeoning in the fact that it can pick up value off of things like Crucible of Worlds to replay something like a Strip Mine or fetchland a few times in a turn. Generally speaking I wouldn't run it though unless I was pushing for a faster presence though due to giving up card advantage for ramp that quickly runs out of steam.
Keen Sense its nice card draw but its reliant on Thrun connecting and its worse than several others that are already being run in here. Its cheap but for two more mana you get Snake Umbra which is just so much better in so many ways.
Mirri's Guile topdeck manipulation is really cool. You definitely need to emphasis shuffle effects though if you are going to run topdeck manipulation though. Start by adding fetchlands and potentially kick off of ramp / creature tutors to back it up with shuffle effects. Stagnant topdeck is not a great thing to get.
Rancor great power buff + trample + self recurs. This thing is really hard to get rid of for opponents as generally speaking killing the creature in response to the rancor is the way to kill it so it puts them just to counters, grave hate, hand hate, or exile an enchant effects. Its really cheap and robust and it adds all the things we want to see to Thrun.
Storm Front solid flying defense. The only problem is that if its a flying voltron commander they might be packing shroud / hexproof effects. Also, this depends on how your meta handles declaring attackers. In some metas you can wait until they just do their attacks to do this stuff and others will make you step through it and force you to tap it before they pick a direction to go.
Wild Growth cheap ramp. Its not particularly big ramp and it doesn't ramp that hard. Generally speaking I would rather ramp another land at two mana or drop a trinket than load a land up like this. Generally speaking I wouldn't recommend going this route.
Ground Seal We don't really run a ton of grave recursion so this could be a solid option to sort of try to keep people out of graveyards. It stops some effects and it doesn't stop others. Generally speaking its usually better to run something with guaranteed value where you know you can stop the shenanigans. I like how it draws a card when it comes in though upfront and doesn't require any further attention though.
Lifeforce great sideboard option if your meta allows sideboarding. Otherwise I wouldn't worry about it unless your meta is heavy saturated with players who play mono black or something.
Night Soil grave yard hate as well as token spawning. Unfortunately its selective as to what you can hate on with it and when you can do it. The tokens are a bit meh as well but its reusable at instant speed and not on a stick.
Survival of the Fittest generally speaking survival is best in a creature heavy deck. I wouldnt even really consider it unless your count was at least 20+. Its a good tool though if you want to go a heavier creature route.
Sylvan Library it allows you to do topdeck manipulation and draw. Generally I like it more than Sensei's Divining Top due to the ability to draw cards in a pinch. Still, it would benefit from some more shuffle effects than I currently run.
Arachnus Web this card is intended to be run along side of Arachnus Spinner. Its not that impressive of a lockdown on its own but when its being cheated in repeatedly it can gum up voltron strategies or you can try to lock up utility commanders. It could potentially be run on its own if you see a lot of utility commanders though.
Awakening Zone this gives me blockers, extra mana, and guys to sac to edict effects. Its sort of an odd card because it isnt really continuing my primary strategy but it does a lot of smaller utility things and is somewhat versatile as well. With some of the land disruption untapping effects out there too these guys can provide a nice boost to available mana.
Blanchwood Armor a nice large buff effect for somewhat low mana. On the downside though, it doesn't give any evasion and it has bad synergy with utility lands. It gives a very large buff for the mana cost though.
Boar Umbra due to the change in the legend rule, this got a little bit better for Thrun as he has less things that make him be sacrificed. Still, it does not defend against tuck effects or edict effects so its still sort of narrow in that it helps him against no regenerate wraths for the most part. The buff itself isn't half bad but it lacks evasion so its nothing really amazing.
Choke very much so a sideboard option but if you are really getting murdered by those blue players you could experiment with sliding it in for a few rounds. I generally wouldn't suggest it in the deck but if you have to fight against a lot of blue mages it can get the job done.
City of Solitude great for fighting against the control players. It does screw with a few of our own cards and stops Thrun from regenerating though which sucks. Still... this deals with a ton of draw / go style players and screws with control like crazy.
Enchantress's Presence this is an auto include into enchantress decks. Sadly, green has little for ways to tutor for it so the actual creature enchantresses are more reliable to be able to tutor for generally. I wish it would draw off of itself but its cheap to drop and green has a lot of ways to recover it if it gets taken out.
Hall of Gemstone this screws with control players and multi colored decks. Keep in mind that it potentially screws with Thrun's regenerate ability as well if you don't have a mana stone or creature that taps for mana. You can however in response to the ability on the stack activate a regenerate shield which will last through the duration of the turn. This screws with opponents answers on our turns though which is very useful.
Lure these effects are interesting in the fact that they screw with blockers real nicely. Generally speaking I think lure effects sort of have their impact on the turn they come down then everyone plays around them though.
Oath of the Ancient Wood its an interesting card if you were looking to be sort of an enchantress style of build. It could work really well with things like Broken Fall and Molting Skin which can loop themselves back to hand as they would slightly pump Thrun each time cast as well as potentially drawing off of the enchantresses you might have in play. The hard part about going enchantress is that you loose a lot of valuable effects that white provides for that type of deck.
Snake Umbra card draw, pump effect, and a means to make it through some wraths. I like totem armors and I just wish there was a good buff + trample one but I guess I have to take what I can get.
Vow of Wildness a nice pump, trample, and it actually can be cast on opponents creatures for a control effect. The biggest downside here is if you were trying to swing at the player you have to use this on. Its a nice diplomatic effect especially early on when targets are being picked. It goes on Thrun quite nicely too.
Gaea's Embrace a nice buff and a cheaper regenerate effect. Sadly the regenerate option is mostly wasted on Thrun due to already having regenerate.
Greater Good a means to save Thrun from tuck effects. Its a nice emergency draw effect too. Generally speaking though I never want to drop him to this unless someone is hitting a wrath against me. The more wrath heavy your meta is the better it becomes. However I essentially never wanted to just drop Thrun to this unless there was something bad happening to him.
Gigantiform this gives Thrun +4/+4 and trample. It has better results based upon the initial size of the creature you are placing it on. Considering we can get +3/+3 and trample for around 3 mana and +5/+5 for 6 mana I am not overly impressed. Its not bad but better for smaller initial power commanders.
Tornado this thing really shines in big mana decks. You ideally want to be able to drop it and activate it several times over the next few turns. It works better in multiplayer as you can potentially use it more times in a turn rotation. Still, currently this deck isn't designed to utilize really big mana.
Epic Proportions big buff, trample, flash, and its relatively cheap for its effect. I really like the combination of elements to this card. Plus sometimes people block Thrun differently assuming he isn't going to hugely trample their face in :).
Nature's Wrath generally speaking I would say that this is sideboard tech but considering that it hates on two of the other best colors in the game it could very well be a meta call or just something to play with and see the results. I dont really care to hate on any one strategy but this seems versatile enough that I could see it played.
Primeval Bounty this card does a lot of handy things but the biggest thing it does for this deck is provides Thrun with lots of +/+ counters. I could see this being played with in a lot of different situations and builds. It works well in +/+ counter builds as it drops a lot of pump on Thrun. In enchantress builds it still buffs Thrun quite well and it fits the theme of being an enchantment itself. It does a lot of useful things in a Thrun build but my biggest concern with it is that it is a value over time card that is hard to get immediate value from. It seems to work best with lots of small spells that string together and in decks that draw and play a ton of cards. Its still vulnerable the turn it drops though as its hard to really use it right away.
Recycle its a very interesting card in the fact that the faster you can burn your way through cards the more you get to draw. Due to how it works I would suspect that getting stuck with high curve cards or a few land in hand would be the way you would get sort of stuck with it but it allows for some interesting things. Playing lands still draws you cards but you can potentially get a clump of lands and slow down or you could get stuck with things you cant cast due to needing more mana to play them and not having the resource to do it. Still the chances of casting this in the early game seems low so I think it could be decent.
Ritual of Subdual it gums up the lands and lets you try to push for some damage while things mostly slow to a halt. Its resource denial but it doesnt actually remove the lands and it is temporary so out of everything I think more people are ok with this considering they can also run mana stones through this.
Mythic Proportions really nice huge buff. Eldrazi Conscription is a better effect however this essentially gives me a second really crazy big buff option with evasion. Being that we are in multiplayer I feel like we need a few of these really large buffs for their mana effects to push for finishing people off of minimal buffs.
Eldrazi Conscription the cream of the crop if you are looking for stupid big buffs. This thing is a freight train and it seals up games incredibly fast. That being said, watch out for countermagic and such as it can be like skipping a turn having a counter eat this.
Summoner's Pact its sort of nice because you pay for it later. The downside, is that you pay for it later. Sadly it has a big cost to tutor out so you really sort of need to use it in the mid / late game. It can be nice though when you find yourself really wanting a super big buff for smashing face though but dont want to wait or pay extra for it. It gives a backup plan to go get Thrun as well which is useful.
Berserk this is the cheapest buff / power out there. This can turn into super Thrun in a second thanks to this. Its more suited for 1v1 games than multiplayer but thanks to the regeneration that Thrun has automatically, he can regenerate from this and still swing out for big numbers.
Fog this is a cheap stop to aggro tactics. I generally run some of the better two drop ones though as two mana is sort of the magic number for Thrun.
Nature's Claim the downside of this spot removal is incredibly small for us since we try to win via commander damage. Due to that this is an incredibly easy to multi task removal effect. Its speed and cheap nature make it really incredible at what it does.
Primal Bellow its cheap and it can be a huge buff. The downside is that you need to be potentially running less utility lands and its not so great until later in the game. Still its cool but I dont think it holds up reliably enough.
Worldly Tutor it can tutor for a lot of different things including ramping into thrun if you have it on turn one. Later in the game it can help you recover Thrun if he gets tucked, tutor into removal. It is card disadvantage however it can get me ramp in the early game when I need it and it can get me any of my creatures that I might need in a pinch. I generally try to save this tutor in the mid and late game for pinch situations so as an emergency tutor its not too shabby.
Bind its a green ability counter!!!! And it draws you a card to boot. Sadly it cant hit triggered abilities or it would be really sick but it could be useful sort of depending on what your meta runs.
Constant Mists reusable fog. This thing is funny because non blue aggro decks just sort of go.... uhhhh crap when they see this. This is one of the best fogs out there as really it takes a wheel or a counterspell to answer it.
Lull its a nice fog that can be disposed of if you end up not needing it.
Moment's Peace two fogs all in one. It can work a bit diplomatically for you when its just sitting in the graveyard as well.
Naturalize its cheap instant speed non-creature hate. Its best in combo metas but I would be running Nature's Claim before I approached this option. I find that being cheap is a lot more important when fighting combos but outside of that I can afford to wait until my turn potentially to answer it.
Provoke its cool creature hate. You can use it in other people's attacks as well to gum up utility creatures / commanders. The biggest downside is that they have to be untapped to use this on them. It can be highly dependant on when you draw this and what the board state is as well as who you are playing against as to how something like this works. Also, with just a fight card there is no issue with damage being blocked but the fact that you can use it on other player's attack phases and it draws a card are all interesting elements.
Tangle It gums up attackers for two turns. This can be really big against some infinite creature spawn type of combos as well as against voltron and aggro strategies. It costs two mana too so its right where we want it to be for that 2 mana Thrun loves as well. It is one of my favorite fogs to use if considering a fog package.
Beast Within any permanent removal. Generally speaking its hard to come by this in green and it usually costs a lot more and is sorcery speed. The 3/3 isnt a huge deal but it does soak damage from Thrun. Still.... it blows up anything at instant speed for little mana. You wont find me complaining about it in any means.
Chord of Calling creature tutor that throws it into play. I really like going after Ulvenwald Tracker and or Master of the Wild Hunt using this at end of turn as it makes them more surprising. Acidic Slime and Duplicant also create some great surprises and it gives me another way to go get Thrun if he gets tucked as well.
Crushing Vines this is a fun little piece of removal. Generally speaking I always want to be able to hit an artifact or flying creature. I tend to find this combination option of removal more useful than something like Naturalize as flying creatures tend to give mono green some issues unless you run some hate for them. Artifacts are very common though as well so this gives a nice set of options.
Hunter's Insight this is one of the best draw effects you can come across for a commander like this. Generally speaking the big drawback of something like this is that an opponent might spot remove them in response to the effect. In here though that's not a problem and it generally draws a minimum of 4 cards for 3 mana which is really solid.
Krosan Grip great removal when facing heavy control and or combo decks. If you dont run into too many counterspells, then the only other reason to run this in my mind is to fight off things like Oblivion Stone where players tend to sit behind them.
Lace with Moonglove this has a few different applications such as the fact that if Thrun tramples then he only needs to do a single damage to begin trampling over. It can also be used on opponent's blocking creatures or after attackers are declared to clear out a pesky creature. Players tend to look at death-touch trading off an ETB creature a bit better when facing the option of taking out a big beefy attacker.
Natural Affinity generally speaking the only use for this is to 1) cast it in the middle of a wrath and set up a regenerate. 2) be really mean to someone with something like a lure type effect to eat up their lands. The more lures you run the better land animation becomes.
Rending Vines somewhat cheap removal, it hits most everything I need it to, and it draws me a card. Its a nice all around card. Its a bit annoying when suddenly you find yourself wanting to smash an Akroma's Memorial or something but its also not the only destroy effect in the deck.
Spidery Grasp this can work excellent as some flying creature hate, voltron hate, or just random anti creature move from the green deck which can be a heck of a lot of fun. It can always be used as a surprise instant speed Thrun buff as well since not a lot of buffs come at instant speed. I really love the fact that this makes Thrun a 6/8 without additional buffs even considered. The downside though is that a straight up fight card is less situational.
Spore Cloud Its essentially another Tangle type fog but the problem is that it runs one mana more expensive than Tangle. Two mana is sort of the sweet spot for Thrun as we like to keep up two to regenerate him if possible and so moving to three mana up is a bit annoying.
Wildsize its a small damage buff that can make or break a combat and it also draws a card. Seeing as its temporary though its not a big enough buff to only last a turn on its own. Its cool though and its potentially a cool combat trick but meh.
Might of Oaks its a nice sized buff but it lacks trample and has no re-usability to it.
Momentous Fall its a nice option when Thrun is about to be wrathed but outside of that timeframe I dont really like dropping him to something like this. Four mana is sadly really tough to manage for a potential card that might not be cast.
Mystic Melting nice art / enchant removal but as it doesn't draw until your next turn Slice in Twain is slightly better.
Slice in Twain its nice artifact / enchant removal. Four to cast is a little expensive however it draws a card as well and has no conditions. If you find yourself up against combo decks I would go with a less mana option. Its something decent to consider though if you find yourself wanting a little more card advantage on your removal but I found it a little heavy at 4 to stay in my list.
Relic Crush it can remove up to two targets. Its a nice option if you find yourself constantly needing to hit multiple targets at a time.
Rootgrapple an instant speed Bramblecrush essentially. I probably wouldn't run Bramblecrush however for one more mana instant speed is interesting.... I still dont know if I would actually consider running this but its interesting.
Ancient Stirrings its a decent dig effect sadly the deck just doesn't run enough artifacts for it to really be all that reliable. In most of my testing I would end up with 1-2 targets and about half of the time the only options were lands. If your list ends up being sort of artifact / land heavy it could be decent though.
Green Sun's Zenith it tutors into all the green creature options in the deck. Its nice to have some access to Thrun if he gets tucked and we have some nice utility creature options to go grab as well. Generally speaking if I opening hand this I will go for Ulvenwald Tracker or Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary. If I draw it later I like to save it as a way to tutor thrun in an emergency. If you want to pick up the option to buff Thrun off of creature tutors I would suggest either Forgotten Ancient or Wolfir Silverheart as the options for the cheat into play tutors. Skarrg Goliath is a nice creature based buff too but as he doesn't come into play nicely like half of the creature tutors cant really nicely retrieve him.
Irresistible Prey fun to screw with opponents creatures with it but generally speaking Provoke is better due to being instant speed even if it does cost one more. Still, if you find yourself liking these effects this is essentially the second Provoke for the deck.
Prey Upon great spot removal for the deck as its hard to come across green creature removal. With Thrun being hexproof its generally a nice one sided spot removal. Its really nice to use in the first main phase to remove blockers as well to send more damage through to the player. The downside is that it is a 1 for 1 effect in mono green. Spot removal is nice but it is card disadvantage and this is a sorcery speed 1 for 1 at that. Keep all of this in mind. Even all that being said I still run it as its a solid piece of removal.
Sylvan Tutor a sorcery speed Worldly Tutor. It costs more money and gives a worse result though so run Worldly Tutor long before you even consider this as this one is a lot worse since they both put the creature on top and this is sorcery speed. Its worth noting though at the very least if you are looking for more of these effects.
Explore it ramps into a faster Thrun and its more useful than just strict ramp later in the game. In a mono color deck like this fixing isnt as big of a deal so something like Explore becomes a lot better. This is by far my favorite Rampant Growth effect because we don't really need to color fix in this deck. Later in the game seeing a Rampant Growth is a lot less effective so instead this gives us a cheap cantrip effect later. The one way which this is worse is if you don't have lands in the early game and were trying to ramp. In that situation Explore is worse but I really haven't had much of an issue with that.
Into the North a snow version of Rampant Growth. If you find yourself wanting more Rampant Growth effects and can float at least 3 or so snow lands its not a bad option.
Life from the Loam its a nice land recovery / dredge type effect. If you run into heavy strip mining or mass land destruction its a nice counter defense option. Generally speaking though shy of running into lots of pinpoint or mass land destruction though I wouldn't bother with it.
Living Wish a great card if your meta will let you run a wish-board. Generally speaking though people aren't alright with wish-boards or are running so competitive you probably wont want them to be ok with it lol.
Nature's Lore ramps into a faster Thrun and on the upside the land comes in untapped which is fairly scarce as far as two mana land ramp goes. Run it over the Rampant Growth effects due to coming in untapped.
Rampant Growth ramps into a faster Thrun. There are a lot of these effects available though so it sort of depends on which tactics you want to use and a bit off of what your meta uses that will determine which ramp to run.
Regrowth great recovery tool. Generally speaking I like to draw cards over recover them as recovery requires you to have gotten a good card already and not have it be exiled in the grave. Still, in mono green sometimes you have to backtrack and there are some amazing recovery options available.
Sylvan Scrying grabs any land to hand. Thanks to Ancient Tomb this can also function as early game ramp but it grabs nice utility lands after the first few turns. There are some really nice utility lands in the deck so it can serve as evasion or pump for thrun as well or a few other minor utility roles if need be.
Three Visits if you aren't on a budget, this is a great ramp card and it is better than the Rampant Growth effects as it comes in untapped. Sadly, $20.00 is a lot to pay for a functional reprint of Nature's Lore. It is a nice effect though but generally speaking Nature's Lore doesnt matter that the land comes in untapped but it helps when burning through it later in the game as it only costs me one mana to use it.
Recollect cheap recovery. Its the worst of the two and three mana recovery cards however I find that the higher mana options tend to take up whole turns and be extremely situational as to when you would want to use them. Generally speaking just recovering the key card from my graveyard and being able to use it is all that I need.
Riding the Dilu Horse power buff, evasion, and it leaves nothing behind to target. What most people don't realize at first is that this is an ongoing effect (continues past end of turn). This ties together a lot of really amazing effects for Thrun and leaves nothing to target for opponents. The biggest downside of this card is its price to purchase / trade for one of these. They are hard to come by but this is also one of the few decks I could see anyone running it for.
Tower Above technically... its a 6 mana card but as we are mono green... its really easy to just call it a GGG card here. This gives us removal, pump, and trample all in one. Thrun not having unblockable or flying makes this a lot better as about anything untapped we can force to block him. One of the big things for me is that this is one of the few outs you are going to come by to deal with some creatures with Indestructibility (especially Avacyn, Angel of Hope for me). This is a temporary buff though so it could also be scrapped for a better ongoing effect but the removal portion of this is useful.
Bramblecrush this is a nice versatile bit of removal. Generally speaking I don't worry too much about being able to answer utility land and planeswalkers though as far as Thrun is concerned because I plan on killing people faster than they can generally become a problem. Thrun can always attack planeswalkers too and since he has hexproof he is immune to all of the maze effects currently out there. Due to this I tend to focus more on being able to answer artifacts / enchantments of what this can do and there are cheaper and more effective ways to do that in green.
Harmonize this is a nice bit of card draw that isn't reliant on Thrun which I like. It draws a good number of cards for a reasonable mana cost.
Hunt the Weak I really love the effect that this has but its sorcery speed for too much mana. I would love to have seen it as a 3 mana instant or a 2 mana sorcery and I probably would have played around with it. I felt they went too conservative in its design though but it is on a common. I love these type of effects and it just ended up being overpriced and slow but the effect is really cool. If they had put more pump on it, cheapened it up, or sped it up it would have added a lot more appeal for me.
Increasing Savagery its a very large pump effect. The flashback gives just silly power to Thrun as well. The fact that this gives two waves of pump potentially is very nice. I generally consider +/+ counters to be a superior aura as it will still disappear with Thrun but doesn't leave a permanent to target and remove. The power per mana here is very good but it lacks evasion.
Natural Balance this is another nice option if you want to go the resource denial direction. If people really abuse high land counts in your meta this might be useful to you but the point at which it balances to is a bit odd as its still plenty for opponents to wrath and such. Its an interesting card but I have never really been willing to include it due to the land count it leaves people with.
Reap and Sow utility lands in this deck are very effective. The problem is that Thrun is trying to go so fast that the opponents utility lands often dont matter that much. Due to this I feel that Expedition Map and Sylvan Scrying handle the retrieval of utility lands better due to being cheaper and faster. Being faster means that they can be used to ramp into thrun where as this effect would come after he is in play which I am less impressed by. It does put the land into play but even with that I dont like it as much as the other two in this case.
Scapeshift I used this effect in the past and its not a bad effect. It can turn basic lands into utility lands but even then its slow to do that and even bringing in 3-4 utility lands in one shot I had a hard time justifying a card for what it did. I ended up in the end preferring the cheaper means to go get a single land effects as they seemed more versatile overall. If you find yourself always wanting all of your utility lands though or running really heavy on utility lands though this can be a nice effect.
Whirlwind its a one shot wrath flyers. That said generally speaking you are better off with a means to control flying over time than blowing them all up once. When it comes to flying commanders I would definitely rather a continuous way to fight them than a single kill.
Enlarge this is a nice combat trick for a temporary boost to damage as well as being able to potentially answer a creature. I tend to like Tower Above more than this effect as you get to pick who will block and the Wither means that you can kill indestructible. Still, these effects are still solid and its a very sizable buff that adds evasion as well. I tend to dislike one shot effects though in multiplayer but they tend to work out better in heads up where you only need to kill one person.
Overwhelming Stampede this is essentially a budget option replacement for Berserk. There is no reason to play this over Berserk other than for budget means. Since we can regenerate Thrun Berserk essentially costs GG1 assuming you want to save him at the end of it vs the 3GG here. Berserk also offers the option to cast it on someone elses creature though too which can be useful but considering how much of a fast aggro deck we are its unlikely that other players will be attacking each other or really attacking much at all while we have a board position. Its not a bad effect all in all but like I said, Berserk is better but I suppose you could always want to run both or be running this for budget reasons.
Plow Under its more of a 1v1 card but it really hurts a lot if it hits you. In the early game it sets your plans way back and in the late game its like you just miss two entire draw steps which also hurts. Due to the fact that it only hits one player though and its not completely devastating its more of a 1v1 tempo style card. I would encourage people who are playing 1v1 or small (3 player) FFA games to consider this more so than in 4+ player games.
Predatory Rampage this is another type of overrun effect. This one is interesting as its a psudo wrath effect as everything your opponents control must block so this can be used as a lure + buff effect. Its a one shot effect though so be careful as these effects are an easy way to run out of card advantage yourself.
Primal Command it can do a lot of different things which is very useful. I still find it incredibly clunky for its mana but it has a very large variety of uses on it and in general I need to be able to pick Thrun out of the deck if he gets tucked. Its a clunky card but it does a lot of different things and picks Thrun out of the deck as well.
Restock its recovery and it generates card advantage. Due to how fast Thrun tries to operate though I have had a hard time with recovery effects. They really only work after a wrath goes off or someone smashes up a bunch of things. You are better off with card draw than recovery in my opinion due to this.
Soul's Majesty It is a Thrun dependent card draw. That said we tend to make Thrun really crazy big so it can draw a TON of cards really easy with these effects. Don't be surprised when these effects end up being something like draw 6-10+ cards for 5 mana with no drawbacks.
Stunted Growth similarly to Plow Under, this card is designed a lot more for 1v1 games or small multiplayer games. The more opponents you play against the worse it will become. I would not suggest using these effects if your normal games are 4+ people.
Desert Twister it answers any permanent but it does so very slowly. Six mana to destroy something is really painful to cast and there are sort of better options these days. If you really want one of these effects I usually recommend Karn Liberated (it exiles and can be used multiple times potentially) and Spine of Spine of Ish Sah (if it dies in an artifact wrath you get it back. You might even burn a Naturalize effect too to recover it if need be) before you consider the Twister.
Rain of Thorns I love how many things it can destroy but sadly for its mana and speed it still feels sort of sluggish. I generally speaking answered an artifact or an enchantment and took out a land because I could. Utility lands arent that big of a worry in here though and so I was mostly getting an artifact or enchantment for 6 mana at sorcery speed. It just couldn't make the cut for me. If it cost like probably 2 less I would consider it but it would probably be too powerful at that point.
Revenge of the Hunted Its a large one time buff plus serves as removal. I like this card but in the end I replaced it for an ongoing pump effect. I still like this effect though and out of the lure effects its one of my favorite as it gave a nice size buff + trample to thrun still. Its good but temporary buffs can run you out of steam somewhat easily.
Tooth and Nail If you run a few more creatures and higher mana creatures at that this becomes an interesting option. I dont really run anything too crazy to make it useful but you could potentially set up some really big gamebreaking moves. Generally speaking though in my opinion you really need to set up your deck appropriately to make this card good. Its really sub-par in my list as it stands now.
Praetor's Counsel it can be fun but my issue with it is that its a mid game - late game type of card. You never want this in the early game and until you essentially get wrathed off the board its not going to do much of anything. It is also dependent on graveyard hate and counterspells. People really hate it when this goes off so it draws a lot of attention.
Garruk, Primal Hunter for the most part I use him as a second Soul's Majesty but seeing as he costs the same mana and does the same thing at the same speed with additional options of how to be used, this guy packs a lot of power for a planeswalker. He is mostly Thrun dependent for the draw but you can always drop him in and start making beasts / enchant / equip a beast and draw cards as well. I am really hesitant to drop him in when I have Thrun and do something other than his -3 because he tends to draw a lot of hate very quickly so trying to abuse him draws a lot of attention and potentially you might only end up with a beast from him.
Karn Liberated Karn opens us up to some nice removal. This is one of the few ways to remove indestructible targets for the deck with Duplicant being the other option. He can theoretically be reusable however its hard to really defend him in this deck. Generally speaking I drop him and expect him to die immediately after using his -3 ability once. If you arent ok with that you might consider running some fogs or token spawning because he is really hard to defend otherwise.
Ancient Tomb It ramps us into a turn 3 Thrun. I also fetch into it early on from Expedition Map or Sylvan Scrying if you have no other ramp in your opening hand. Faster Thrun is always a good and worthy cause. The life loss to this is minimal enough that I dont mind it. Later on you can keep it up as one of the lands you save to try to regenerate thrun to minimize life loss unnecessarily.
Buried Ruin It can recover some of our valuable equipment. It is a land and gives us mana too but we really dont need a ton of land so later on its usually worth cycling an equipment back up for use over having another land. Its utility option isnt something that is useful until later in the game though usually.
Cathedral of War this is an ETB tapped land which is annoying but it also gives thrun the option to pump additionally which is really useful. I often find myself copying this if possible with things like Thespian's Stage. The fact that it comes in tapped can usually be played arround by playing it on a turn before thrun that you have nothing to do or playing it after Thrun comes in. The only time its really a problem is if you are topdecking for lands and it happens to be the one you get when you need your mana to cast things.
Dryad Arbor there is some decent merrit behind running the arbor as a land in a Thrun deck. 1) GSZ for 0 means you can ramp into a faster thrun. You could also GSZ for 1 and get something like a 1 mana dork or whatever but either way it takes up a slot that we currently dont run. 2) Some people run Edict effects and having random cump guys to sac to these is useful in dodging these. 3) you would then have an option to run fetchlands and fetch into a creature as an option later on. Overall, I don't think the advantages are necessarily worth the fact that it dies in wraths and has summoning sickness though. There are metas where this might be something well worth considering though.
Glacial Chasm this is a really cool utility land if you have a heavy land recursion package. Combined with Crucible of Worlds and or Life from the Loam it can be extremely annoying to opposing aggro decks. We have a decent amount of utility land tutors as well currently but I think my favorite to fetch this would definitely be to cast Crop Rotation into it as someone were attacking you and nullify their attack. All that said, this is a temporary stall on a land that doesn't tap for mana (without Urborg) and costs resources to keep up and keeps you from attacking while its in play. To play it right would be to fetch it into play as you need it and let it drop and recur it each turn after you attack out. It definitely needs a little bit of a package to support it but its a nice option if you were looking at some fog package options.
High Market this serves as a sacrifice outlet. The biggest thing this serves for this deck is an easy way to drop Thrun out of a tuck wrath. We often push to keep 1G up to regenerate Thrun so this can serve as the 1 we keep up and have the option to sac him in response to it.
Inkmoth Nexus some people like to have an alternate wincon. Considering poison kills at 10, we could easily animate this land and drop some equipment / auras on this to quickly kill someone. I see a lot of nonbasic land hate and Tower of the Magistrates in my meta though so I worry a bit about it but it also gives me a creature to sac to edict effects and if you really need to punch someone for potentially lethal it seems like a good option to have around.
Khalni Garden it gives a token which can help against Edict effects. It still taps for green as well so you really only have to manage the ETB tapped part of it and so long as you don't have to drop it the turn you are trying to drop Thrun its usually manageable.
Llanowar Reborn its an ETB tapped land that taps for green. It does however give Thrun an option to start with a +1/+1 counter on him though. The big killer for me here though is that it needs to be in play before Thrun or he will have to die and be recast after this comes in. Its not half bad though and still taps for green which is nice. It mostly comes down to the fact that it has an ETB tapped and if your meta runs Back to Basics / Ruination / Blood Moon effects to determine if you dont want to run it. If you see any sort of nonbasic land hate in your meta I would probably cut this one because its advantage is incredibly small and narrow.
Mosswort Bridge this can be a nice source of card advantage. What is nice about it is that it has a nice way to generate some card advantage and cheaply cast something later. The more you focus on buffing Thrun the better it gets so if you are more in the control or disruption areas you might not find as good of results from it. I like that it has a way to cheaply cast the spell behind it and we can do it at instant speed once the conditions have been met meaning we can be in combat and flash out an extra aura for a surprise buff.
Mouth of Ronom its really really hard to come across good creature removal in green so I am actually really happy to have the chance to fling a land for 4 damage in this deck. Also, don't forget that you can use this as 4 additional trample damage when attacking as you can fling this for damage at a blocking creature and you will start trampling 4 damage sooner with Thrun. We don't really need tons of land in this deck so cannibalizing a few for useful effects isn't that worrisome.
Mystifying Maze being that we are one of the faster decks at most tables I usually don't find myself using this much at all. However, with the fact that we have the nonbasic land tutors I like having the option to use this if need be. Having a maze can be a lifesaver so I keep it around even though it is expensive to use and it is sort of situational as to when we are the ones who need the maze.
Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers its another small utility buff option. I don't use it unless I don't have much else I am doing in a turn as well as two mana for doing one more damage for a turn isn't that incredible but it has its moments. It taps for green still and comes in untapped so the downside behind running it is incredibly small and mostly limited to nonbasic land hate effects.
Petrified Field if you find yourself really wanting a specific utility land all the time and or opponents are blowing up a specific utility land of yours a lot this gives you another recovery option to bring back those important utility lands for you. It sort of depends on how heavily you always want a utility land though as to how playable this is though I think.
Reliquary Tower with some effects like Soul's Magesty you can draw a crazy amount of cards. Generally speaking there are almost never more than 7 cards in my hand I want to keep though so I am not too worried about discarding at end of turn but if you love having a huge hand its an optional land to run.
Rogue's Passage generally speaking I try to push trample on a lot of the buffs I run but there are a strong buffs that lack evasion that I run as well. The passage is not cheap by any means but it can push Thrun through for damage. I have on occasion as well run into people clogging up their board with blockers so even with trample I cant get through. In situations like these you occasionally need to just go unblockable.
Strip Mine very rarely do I find myself needing to remove opponents lands with how fast I try to be but even with that I still run one land based out for opposing utility lands. Keep in mind that we have a few nonbasic land tutors so I can go get it if I need it.
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale alright, I realize most people will not have this. I happened to own one so I run it because this is a creature light strategy that has some issues with token swarm decks since I cant really wrath them very easily. I find that tokens are the big place that tabernacle hits but you can also hurt people when using land disruption tactics. Don't worry too much if you aren't going to get a copy of this as it was just a nice add for the deck more than a core concept or anything.
Thespian's Stage we have a few really nice utility lands that are also nice to have extra copies of. I find this to be a versatile utility land at the very least. If you don't have enough green you can turn it into a forest before you hit the 4th mana and could drop Thrun anyways. After Thrun is in play my favorite thing to copy is usually Cathedral of War as its more free buffing but I also use it to sort of clone utility lands that someone might be trying to kill in response.
Tower of the Magistrate I like being able to forcibly make people drop their equipment. It is cheap to use as well so you can keep it as one of the 1G to regenerate Thrun and activate it as an alternative to Thrun's regenerate. The more you see people use equipment in your meta the better this will become. Remember that you can always use this in response to Lighting Greaves equip and forcibly keep them off of their haste and or shroud. I dislike swords that give protection from green personally as blockers with this can be extremely annoying. It also forces the indestructibility equipments off of creatures so Thrun can run them over rather than encountering them turn after turn.
Treetop Village another land that gives me options when it comes to edict effects. It also has built in trample and it animates for the G1 that we try to keep up for Thrun which is useful. I likely wouldn't bother swinging out with it unless something happened to Thrun though. It can eat small utility guys who come your way though which is nice.
Vesuva another option to copy land. I don't like that it comes in as a copy though and cant change as it means we need good utility lands before we get this. I think Thespian's Stage is a bit more versatile due to this. The one really big advantage that this land has to Thespian's Stage though is that it can copy ETB land effects such as Bojuka Bog.
Change Log
9/24/2012
9/24/2012
CUTS:
ADDS:
9/29/2012
10/19/2012
CUTS:
11/7/2012
11/15/2012
12/3/2012
12/27/2012
12/30/2012
1/4/2013
1/6/2013
1/15/2013
1/19/2013
1/28/2013
1/29/2013
2/15/2013
4/3/2013
4/9/13
5/18/13
6/28/13
7/1/13
7/18/13
11/7/2013
1/24/2014
2/11/2014
7/15/2014
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[Modern] Allies
How.... did I forget about Mana Crypt..... fail lol (probably cus I dont own one but still)
Desert Twister / Spine of Ish Sah always felt too slow and clunky for me. I will roll with Karn but thats because he can potentially get more than one. I have a harder time seeing these getting repeat use.
Master of the Wild Hunt is an interesting option. I originally avoided adding all that many creatures as I wanted to punish creature control decks some. He is some removal options on his own and seems like a good answer to utility and ETB creatures. I will see how he rolls.
Exploration / Burgeoning I suppose this comes down as a question of how hard do we want to push the early thrun. I am all for adding a bit more ramp to the deck but I purposely tried to keep my curve somewhat low so I dont know about these as much... I dont really want to go too far to push for an early thrun as he still takes a while to kill someone unless we also get one of the big buff effects.
Sensei's Divining Top - I never really like it as much without a bunch of shuffle effects to clear out the topdeck. I just dont think I will have as many shuffles as I would want to run this.
Life from the Loam / Crucible of Worlds I have to ask, do you run in a MLD meta or do you plan on using these to fill your graveyard and gain some advantage? I have never been that interested in Loam in the past.
Creeping Renaissance I dont like how much this costs and how spread out we seem to be for it... What are your thoughts here? Do you plan on just picking up like 2 cards at a time with it? I considered it originally but discarded it due to how spread out I am.
Hornet Queen - I might actually pack her because I like how defensive she is. She doesn't demand that I be wrathed but it is sort of some of the stall I seem to be missing as she covers the sky nicely. I might have to give her a spin.
So... I am going to try a few changes here:
CUTS:
1 Wolfir Silverheart - he is sort of fragile as a buff. I think I will go elsewhere.
1 Grafdigger's Cage - seems very conditional and I need to get it in before my opponents abuse stuff. Ehhhh probably going to cut it for something more proactive for now.
1 Null Rod - dropping the artifact hate package for other options.
1 Damping Matrix - dropping the artifact hate package for other options.
1 Vow of Wildness - I thought it might be cool due to its dual options however I will probably go without as I dont play against that many voltron decks.
1 Predatory Rampage - if it added trample as well then I would be happy. Its an interesting card but I dont know how often I want to force people to block thrun.
1 Provoke - it might just be a little too cute. I like how I could force opponents to block during other player's attacks as well which is amusing and it draws me a card. I dont know how often I really want to force someone to block thrun though... It seems like a card that when everything is going well it might just be ok.
1 Forest
ADDS:
1 Mana Vault - Turn 2 thrun
1 Mana Crypt - Turn 2 thrun
1 Mind's Eye - More draw is good
1 Three Visits - Turn 3 thrun
1 Hornet Queen - solid control like creature. It gives me some flying defense and takes a wrath / counterspell to stop it for the most part.
1 Loxodon Warhammer - more trample. This also gives me some lifegain options to stall vs the agro decks.
1 Master of the Wild Hunt - removal options. It doesnt require me to force opponents to block thrun and he sort of becomes his own little problem on his own which I like.
1 Reliquary Tower - This deck seems like it could draw a lot of cards... it seems possibly worth having one of these handy.
I was also doing some thinking about Cathedral of War and possibly Buried Ruin but there is always the question of where to draw the line on ETB tapped and colorless lands in a deck trying to hit a turn 2/3 GG costed commander.
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[Modern] Allies
Yeah, they are a bit slow, but I like them as they are a catch-all. E Wit and Regrowth let me use Twister a couple times, Phyrexia's core, O Stone, Disk help me reuse Spine sometimes. They are a bit clunky and expensive but I like having them.
I like him a lot, if you can play him early he can really get out of hand.
I see where you're coming from, my deck has a higher curve and more ramp so I think it fits well for me, especially with crucible and loam.
It is lackluster in comparison to Library, but it is the redundancy that I like. I'm running Loam and Crucible so I'm going to add all the fetchlands I can, which will help it some.
I'm using loam and crucible as a draw engine, with Burgeoning and Exploration it can put me far ahead sometimes. Same thing with Creeping Renissance and Praetor's Counsel. Notable synergy with Top and Library, if I don't like the 3 cards I see with top I can get rid of them with loam and draw something new. With fetchlands both will get much better. they also have the bonus of getting back Arena, Maze, etc. if they have been destroyed.
I am running it because I can mill it with Loam and still get value (massive value sometimes). O Stoning away the board then naming artifacts with renaissance getting back my stone, sword, top, etc, is really nice.
Yeah, she is great. Doesn't make you a huge threat but she tells everyone else to back off. I have Avenger of Zendikar in here for that purpose, but he isn't quite as defensive.
I'm not a fan of Cathedral, Buried Ruin seems alright though, getting back a sword or O-Stone seems good, I'll probably add it due to synergies with Crucible and Loam.
Edit: Something I am going to need to add is Tormod's Crypt or some other GY hate. Played with a Sharuum deck and he just had too much recursion that my 1 for 1 or 2 for 1 removal just wasn't working.
GUB The Mimeoplasm GUB
RGW Mayael the Anima RGW
GGG Seton, Krosan Protector GGG
Some weaknesses that I ran into:
Terminus / Hallowed Burial - obviously a problem. I got lucky though as I saw it coming but also saw that he was land screwed so I just squeezed in a Greater Good before he could hit it. I might see if I can squeeze High Market into the list as keeping up 2 mana for a regen is a good move for thrun so it would fit nicely into the landbase I think.
Constant Mists - I have a buddy with a GB deck that tutors into this fairly regularly as his defense... Without counterspells and or wheel effects it seems difficult for mono green to combat. There are some hand shenanigans I could play with or try to go the route of City of Solitude or something along those lines but generally speaking that doesn't sound good for this deck.
Deck Changes:
Gaea's Blessing -> Scavenging Ooze the one card draw is nice but not as nice as the ability to pop it off at instant speed and answer the problem entirely. The ooze gives me an additional optional beater and the lifegain / increasing size seems like a nice option as well. I want to stay away from eating my own graveyard here if I can avoid it since I run some recursion of my own.
Three Visits -> Rampant Growth I overlooked the fact that the visits is a $20.00 card lol. Meh Rampant Growth isn't much of a downgrade for saving $20.00 here.
Berserk -> Forgotten Ancient ok I had one situation where this was really cool but man I kept seeing it in opening hands and its usually bad. I had one time though where thrun was a 7 power and I used this, regrowthed it, and used it again making him a whopping 28 power trampling monster lol. Still.... I keep seeing it way too often and its really only something I want when I push for the last kill. The ancient powers himself up all on his own. He can power thrun up extremely fast, be a beater himself, and make other creatures threats. He seems like he would work great with the fight mechanics in this deck as well. It is surprising if the ancient doesnt pick up at least 3-4 counters in a rotation and if he gets more than that then super. The downside here is that he is sort of a high target creature. He is vulnerable to wraths and spot removal and takes time to work. Sometimes you have to take risks for big rewards though especially in mono color.
Hornet Queen -> Avenger of Zendikar I ended up not liking the queen nearly as much as I thought I would. Thrun is usually a faster threat than other agro decks. If I have trouble with flyers in general then that is the player I usually focus first and put them on the defensive. This is just too defensive in my opinion and I didn't really want her when I got her. Avenger gives me some more offensive options other than just thrun to go offensive with. I dont particularly like him but he does make a big wave of scarry that will be nice with the recursion options in here.
Wall of Blossoms -> Restock its a cool card and it cantrips however I just don't have ways to abuse this in here. Also I don't really need the early blocks here as I am racing people well to the point that they usually go defensive from me rather than me needing to defend myself. Restock feels a little heavy at 5 mana but it adds a bit more recovery as my card draw can be a bit hard to come by.
Forest -> High Market grabbing an easy sac outlet. The tuck wraths seem to be problematic so I want to see if this helps out. Obviously going too high on the colorless count can be a problem but only if I get like 3 of them in an opening hand. So hopefully it wont be too much of a problem.
Forest -> Buried Ruin some extra recursion. Again the colorless isnt too much of a problem assuming I dont get too much of this right away. We will see how it goes.
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[Modern] Allies
Yeah I found that this deck is better in smaller games due to the lack of card advantage. It's hard to control the board when you only have a few sweepers and most of your removal is 1 for 1 or even 2 for 1, if there's 3 players you can easily fall behind and be stuck in topdeck mode. I tried out a similar Sigarda list and it tends to do better in 4-5 player games due to having better creature removal options, which is something mono green sorely lacks.
I actually put in High Market recently too just because of this, as there isn't really any answer except to tutor him up if he gets tucked.
I haven't really run into this problem but I would imagine Dosan, the Falling Leaf or City of Solitude are the only real answers unfortunately.
I agree with most of the changes, but after testing Berserk it's one of my favorite cards in here. The versatility is just amazing in this deck. If an opponent is attacking somebody else, you can sometimes kill off a player or scary defending creature by pumping somebody else's dude, and then once the turn gets shipped Berserk kills the creature you just pumped. I used it on somebody's Terastodon to take out a large chunk of life from an opponent and also kill the Terastodon in one spell. Also, the synergy with Thrun's regenerate is awesome. I have been able to one shot people with him after berserk, and the "downside" of destroying the creature can be negated by just keeping regen mana open. I was even considering putting in Isochrom Scepter almost exclusively for Berserk, but decided against it due to the lack of other targets.
GUB The Mimeoplasm GUB
RGW Mayael the Anima RGW
GGG Seton, Krosan Protector GGG
This deck looks like fun to pilot. Not what you expect from someone playing forests. Forgotten Ancient plus Spike Weaver = tech.
WUBRG Some of these decks can actually win games...WUBRG
How I know I should build a deck:
Some fairly really fun things I have done so far to date in this deck:
1) Opponent plays Living Death to kill thrun, I respond with a Momentous Fall placing Thrun in the bin. Opponent cries
2) Opponent plays a Puppeteer Clique, I respond by playing an instant speed Torpor Orb off of my Vedalken Orrery shutting him down.
Anyways, a lot of things have been working out with a few not really so much. Some changes going forward. Most of these changes were me cutting the cards I didnt like seeing and trying out a few new ones so not as many direct translations here:
CUTS:
Triumph of Ferocity Its sort of slow draw. Its very situational if you will draw anything as well and most people are trying to kill thrun so its tough to rely on this sort of slow effect.
Sylvan Scrying I dont know if I have found the land tutor as impressive as I had hoped for originally. Arena is nice and all but it not tapping for mana has been a problem. We have lots of other control in the deck and I just dont know how impressed I have been with the land tutor in here.
Mind's Eye mana intensive and slow. I have found several of the other green power draw effects to just be so much more explosive.
Avenger of Zendikar - I continue to be unimpressed with him. I even Chord of Callinged into him at instant speed at the end of one of my opponents turn just to have him eat a Swords to Plowshares in response to his tokens. I have yet to turn the tokens sideways for any profit here and I think I have tutored him up like 3 times now... my meta is very heavy on wraths and creature control.
Gigantiform Gigantiform has felt a little clunky. Its expensive and paying 6 mana for a 4 power buff hasn't quite felt good enough. I decided in the end it wasn't good enough for a slot at that mana.
Rain of Thorns It seems like it never really works out. Its too slow and it cant double target one card type. I had it in hand vs like 3 artifacts I wanted to smash the other day with no enchantments or utility lands in play so I was really dissapointed in its results there. It feels too slow and expensive personally.
ADDS:
Power Matrix This seems like all sort of abilities I want regularly on Thrun. Flying + trample means he can avoid a ton of stuff and it doesnt have an equip cost so putting it on is super easy to do. Its not an enchant either so it doesn't fall off randomly. The power bump is really small but the evasions + not being an aura are definately bonuses.
Blanchwood Armor HUGE buff. I am hoping I run enough trample to back this working out but considering its likely to come down even early game as like a +4/+4 the turn after thrun hits at a minimum seems really nice. Late in the game this could easily be more explosive than Berserk.
Mind Stone I keep weighing how much I want to go with fast ramp as I have tons of options to go with. The upside to this one is that I can canibalize it for a card draw later if it comes to that. Being an artifact is a downside and that it taps for colorless is also a pain. However the option to eat it for a card keeps it as a stone I still generally like having. Ill give it a shot here.
Infiltration Lens I keep grabbing trample because thrun keeps getting chumped. Even with trample he still gets chumped a lot to reduce his damage. This lets me power out some draw from his blockers which seems nice. This might also be about as good as trample as it makes people think twice about giving me cards.
Strata Scythe - HUGE Buff. This one looks at all lands of that type and being in a mono colored deck means that this is gona be a big buff. Green is very popular in EDH too so the chance of this being like a +10/+10 by turn 5 or so seems easy to happen.
Spidery Grasp - This gives another solid anti flying card. Untapping thrun and swatting down a threat seems good to have. I can also use this while going offensive for a surprise extra trample option. This feels like a good versatile answer for a green control deck.
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[Modern] Allies
DECK CHANGES:
Wildsize -> Tower Above I like the surprise factor of Wildsize however Tower Above gives me options on how my opponent might block. Generally everyone is sort of wary of Thrun anyways due to my Epic Proportions shenanigans. I had considered using something like Predatory Rampage which would be better against tokens however the fact is that Tower Above gives me a large buff, trample, and block control all in one. It has synergy with most all of my draw outlets as well due to that so I like everything it does in one card.
Spike Weaver -> Tangle I really didnt like that the weaver would just sit out in the open for removal. Part of the great thing about thrun is that he is hard to target but having my defenses easily targeted sucks. I am just about always happier to have my fogs in hand than in play so I am swapping to Tangle which is still quite powerful.
Spidery Grasp -> Umezawa's Jitte This deck is sort of scarry to defend against so I have found that a lot of people dont like swinging at me until they are swinging really hard. Due to this I have found the Grasp a bit less impressive. Jitte on the other hand gives me great control which I am always looking for and the option of pumping thrun as well.
Restock -> Mask of Memory Most of the time I just feel like Restock takes up my entire turn. Due to this I decided to keep the cheaper regrowths and the more powerful Praetor's Counsel and cut the middle of the pack regrowth. Mask seems like it should work really well in with my trample aggro strategy.
The deck has been really fun so far. Hopefully it sticks around for a long time as I have found it to be a lot more... interactive I guess... than most other mono green decks I have done before.
EDIT: just as a follow up, I drew Tower Above and it was essentially always great. It functions along a lot of lines of what this deck is trying to do and it gives me a kill while easily trampling over for more damage. It works great with a lot of the draw effects as well and its GGG mana cost is cheap for the deck and easy to multi task with other great effects. I didn't see any of the other changes yet but I was extremely happy with the results I saw from Tower Above.
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[Modern] Allies
Also if the stars aligned you could Revenge of the Hunted and completely blow someone out of land and creatures.
Adding the tracker and revenge as soon as I get the cards.
Retired Lists: Ghave - Hanna - Thrun - Zur
Pauper: Crypt Rats
[Primer] WUB Dromar, the Banisher Stax [SOON TO BE OLORO]
Living Plane is probably too hard to hit with a Jitte full of counters, but that would be amazing. With Tabernacle of Pendell Vale it can lock them out of lands just long enough for Thrun to win the game. You could even put in Goblin Rocket Launcher.....ok....that's probably just bad.
DECK CHANGES:
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood -> Cathedral of War Oran-Rief is hard to use as it costs extra mana when casting thrun. Due to that I haven't really seen much use for it so far. The cathedral still taps for mana but doesn't require slowing down or paying more for thrun to get him bigger.
Terrain Generator -> Ancient Tomb I realized the Generator wasn't ramping me properly lol. It was a bit of an oversight but it takes 3 to throw an extra land out which makes me ramping at the wrong time with it. The tomb on the other hand speeds me up a turn which is nice.
Winding Canyons -> Rogue's Passage I dont usually have to recast thrun a lot and I dont run much for other creatures so the canyons hasn't been that great. Unblockable on a land that still taps for mana on the other hand seems like great utility.
Oracle of Mul Daya -> Ancient Stirrings Oracle gives some card advantage in the fact that I draw less lands but it doesnt really ramp me appropriately for thrun. I have a lot of other advantage in the deck as well so I decided that giving away all of my draws for land wasn't as good here. I like the Ancient Stirrings as I have a lot of colorless targets as well as the option to always get a land out of it. Most of my fun artifacts are fun little toys and the ability to sort of dig at them seems like a nice option.
Blanchwood Armor -> Icy Manipulator I dont actually know if this one is going to stick but I am bringing it in to try it out. These effects give me options to defend myself from other creatures or remove blockers from my way. I like the balance of Icy considering it can target a lot of things and cheaply activates.
Other Considerations:
O-Naginata its sort of like a cheap loxy warhammer. It costs less to cast and equip and still gives the trample and power buff of it. I do like picking up the life though when possible. I could potentially bring this in yet for another buff I am currently running but I just sort of realized that it was an option so I have to sort of think it over in comparison to what I am currently running.
Scapeshift with the addition of Rogue's Passage and a few other utility lands the option of just massively grabbing utility lands into play seems fairly sweet. I sort of wanted to play with the utility lands a bit more though to see how important they are. This seems like a cool addition though but I might also consider furthering my utility lands if I were to go with something like this.
Predator, Flagship this gives some nice dual purposes here. The ability to fly thrun through or fly another creature to block for me as well as swat down flyers or other creatures in general seems nice. My worry here though is the cost involved in playing and using it. Paying 7 to kill after paying 5 to cast seems really slow. Plus it seems like it would be heavily targeted.
Kamahl, Fist of Krosa - my biggest issue with him is just how mana intensive he can be. I agree that later into the game he can be really cool but I feel like he is just so much more mana hungry than the rest of the deck really is. He does give some wrath protection however but it depends on how much that has been giving you issues.
LD in general an option but I personally wouldnt really go out of my way for it. Kamahl might be viable due to his option of multi overrunning but animating all lands seems a bit more hit an miss.
I have found it extremely fun to play. Green has a hard time controlling but thrun gives a really solid wincon that other control decks have a hard time dealing with. Due to the unique design of Thrun we get to really use some interesting cards that you might not otherwise see much play with.
Salvaging Station - I dont think we have enough targets for this to be all that effective.
Ritual of Subdual - its solid for just sealing the game up when you are ahead. Its sort of like a LD effect that is temporary that you can later undue. Opponents mana trinkets can be a problem with this but we are green so blowing them up is always an option short of Darksteel Ingot which has been a problem a few times in the past.
Id be happy to answer any other questions you might have as well.
LD effects are an option but for the most part they are like a 2 piece combo in a deck that doesn't have much for tutors into the other parts. I dont think they are worth running as they dont do much on their own. If I were to run any of them it would be Kamahl who has other purposes as well.
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[Modern] Allies
Signature made by Rivenor at Miraculous Recovery Signatures
EDH
[Primer] - BRG Adun Oakenshield: Jund Stax/Recycle Bin GRB
BRG Shatterbros Shenanigans GRB
Retired Lists: Ghave - Hanna - Thrun - Zur
Pauper: Crypt Rats
How is Power Matrix working out for you? I don't think I've actually seen that card run ever.
Slice In Twain and such: Originally I had a lot less card drawing in here. I still like the cantrip on them but I could potentially test the 1-2 mana removals as well. I dont play against a lot of combo based tactics where a naturalize would stop them though so I haven't really been pushing for the fast effects of them so much as get the job done and get something out of it. If I were playing against more combo or someone else were I would suggest running cheaper options and or Krosan Grip as well. But you would likely also shuffle some of the fog effects out if playing against combo and worry a bit less about trample so much as just juicing thrun huge in that situation.
Mirri's Guile: I did consider these effects but I dont feel like I have enough shuffle effects to really make these topdeck manipulators work in here. I considered divining top as well with the same outcome. Library is different due to the fact that it can draw me cards.
What do I need double mana for? My mana curve is generally fairly low in this deck with almost no X mana stuff that would be good with double mana in it. If I was building around genesis wave and Hurricane effects then perhaps but I dont have a ton of mana sinks and I dont have a very high mana curve overall in here. I just dont really have a need for it here.
Just to check I ran the list through deckstats and came back with a 3.28 mpc which is actually quite good. It is actually a bit lower than that as well since Tower Above is considered to be a 6 mana card instead of the GGG that it will likely cost in the mono green deck.
Fixed
The matrix has actually been working fairly well. It gives me two forms of evasion plus a small size boost and doesn't fall off / have to be re-equipped when thrun dies now and then. I haven't done enough testing with it to say too much but I have been fairly happy to see it. I wish it was a bigger buff but it has its pros and cons.
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[Modern] Allies
[Primer] WUB Dromar, the Banisher Stax [SOON TO BE OLORO]
Hakim, Loreweaver
Autumn Willow
Yomiji, Who Bars the Way
Hanna, Ship's Navigator
Chromium
Skyfire Kirin
I run this in my Isao EDH. He should be Thrun but I rarely play him since my play group is infested with people who play Kaalia or Riku so I just deny them mana with mass land destruction. Plow Under is soooooo goood. It makes so many people sad.
I'm really loving this thread btw since it has given me a lot of ideas with where to go with my list.
Edit: Just saw that you have Primal Command. uh I really think you should add Terastodon/Vorinclex. Using Tooth and Nail for those two bad boys is so nasty. But then again I play mono green land destruction control.
Sexy Sig by mchief111 @ Rising Studios
EDH
G Isao
As far as Wall of Blossoms goes, I think its fairly solid. You could also look at Elvish Visionary as well as a similar creature. They are easy to cast and dont eat up card advantage but I tend to focus on them more in decks that have abuse for creatures where you will do more than just cast them and use them as chumps. I dont think they are bad here but I dont see much of a way to abuse them. They are nice to overcome some black edicts though so depending on how much of that you see I think they are good to combat that style of effect.
Survival - I honestly wouldn't run this without at the very least like close to 20 creatures in a list. Without a creature in hand it really flops badly. I think you might see better results just picking up another creature tutor perhaps Worldly Tutor or something else instead.
Cyclone is a card that I have looked at a few times. I havent playtested it but I think it could have some issues with the fact that it doesnt do any damage until next turn. My biggest complaint is just how long it takes to bring it up to doing damage and how much mana you have to devote to it to do such. I still want to test it sometime but its slow nature worries me.
drop of honey it lacks the ability to be controlled which is meh. Trample on average does more than removing a 1/1 from play as well. On average I would say you are better off with things you can control a bit better.
Plow Under - its solid but it tends to just work against one opponent which I dont care for as much. It is a strong effect however any sort of shuffling just puts them down two lands. I like it a lot more for smaller groups or 1v1 games though where I agree its amazing. On average though if I am going to go out for hitting just one opponent with something like this I want it to be really powerful like discard their whole hand or something.
Fallow Earth - too small of an effect.
Primal Command - I actually run this in my list. As a creature tutor its only sort of meh but for the most part I sit on it as a thrun recover and it has tons of versatility to tuck noncreatures or hate graveyards as well.
Brutalizer Exarch - I considered him but in the end I decided that he is a worse Primal Command. I dont really care about the 3/3 body and his tutor is to topdeck. He doesn't have the capability to do anything to graveyards either so in the end I decided that he was just worse than the command. Even then he isn't bad but I dont have a ton of creatures I bother tutoring into so in the end I haven't been overly huge on adding him.
In my opinion if you specifically want to hate on Kaalia and Riku run Hall of Gemstone. I personally haven't gotten around to getting it in my list but its fairly high on my wanted list of fun annoying things.
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[Modern] Allies
Oh yea. I just noticed this is the multi player forum. My deck is tuned for 1vs1. Wow thank you for the Hall of Gemstone suggestion. Nice. Very nice. I am going to test it out as soon as possible. lol.
This is a very interesting deck you have here. You don't want to go mana intensive as Mono Green which is different.
Sexy Sig by mchief111 @ Rising Studios
EDH
G Isao
1. Arena. Most flying creatures, for one, aren't that big. No one will really feel good about using a card to blow this up in multiplayer, and one doesn't need to make the huge commitment that is tapping Thrun into the Red Zone to use it. This will tap their creature too, regardless of who wins the fight, allowing one to keep a creature with Annihilate from triggering at the cost of whatever chump is at hand.
2. Even bigger than that, though, is the Kusari-Gama. It's a hard choice to make, whether to block the general that has "2: +1/+0 until end of turn" or chump him, or dealing the creature's power in untargetted artifact damage to all of one's creatures.
The pump plays well with most combat abilities other gear might be giving Thrun. First Strike, Trample, Lifelink, Wither, Double Strike, and don't even get me started on Inquisitor's Flail.
Overall record: 139-98-15
Total number of matches: 252
Win percentage ignoring draws: 58.649789
Win percentage including draws: 55.158730
Arena - its in my list already. I have been considering adding another land to the deck though as arena doesnt give me mana. I just need to find something to cut to add another mana producing land though...
Kusari-Gama it depends on how much token based strategies you see. Trample and flying already both negate large numbers fairly well here. The cost to play and equip it are a bit high at 3 mana plus pumping thrun at all is going to get costly as well. I have considered it but I think I actually like Grappling Hook even more as the double strike works great with trample. Even then though, these effects are extremely expensive to try to drop and equip. In my mind Kusari-Gama is sort of a meta call for more heavy token based strategies.
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[Modern] Allies
Overall I have been getting a few 1v1 games in with him of late (against other MP decks...) Thrun is one of those decks that works fairly good in smaller games and this build seems to scale fairly nicely up to a 4 player game. I dont think I would play this deck in a 5+ player game though without teams or something.
Of the recent deck changes here have been my results so far:
Cathedral of War this has been a huge improvement over Oran-Rief, the Vastwood. I never wanted to slow down in playing thrun for a power buff of one. So far I have little to nothing to complain about it with it being a solid land based buff for me.
Ancient Tomb ok, it sort of hurts as I think the last game I got it I took something like 14 damage off of it through the game lol. It has been well worth the ramp though in the list. It hurts the most though when you dont manage to get much mana going into the midgame though.
Rogue's Passage I have yet to actually activate it to be honest. I havent drawn it much of at all yet though either. It is one of those endgame things where you just cheat past those blockers for the kill. I have yet to use it though or really see it for that matter. I do have some worry about how much it takes to activate however I am fine with it as of now.
Ancient Stirrings I really havent gotten much use out of it yet. It does its job cheaply though and I think I have seen it once or twice now. More testing is needed but its mostly just a sort of filler card... I could see it being cut but want to test it further before making any more decision on it.
Mask of Memory it has been amazing draw for me. Its ability to draw multiple cards has been really strong. I love hooking this plus infiltration lens and trample up as it just turns into power drawing lol.
Umezawa's Jitte it has been incredible so far. It gives me spot removal and pump together which has been really really good in here. All of the trample evasion turns those counters into very lethal pump later on.
Tangle I havent seen it a ton yet but it did a good job of buying me two turns against Omnath the other day. Big fat green decks can give me some problems so having some of these fogs has been great. I have been contemplating Spore Cloud due to how effective these effects have been for me.
Tower Above this is one of the better spot removals I have access to. I cant believe I didn't have this sooner. It gives me some problems against tap ability creatures who can dodge the block though but other than that this has been fairly amazing.
Icy Manipulator the verdict is still out on this one but it did do a good job last time I drew it to tap down blockers and send thrun through more. Time will tell but the tapping has been quite effective so far.
The questionable cards as the list stands now are:
Ancient Stirrings I dont know about its consistency or necessity in here... its a nice filler card but I think it might need to go for something else.
Forgotten Ancient I get all weirded out every time it comes to hand that I just dont play him... I guess he feels a bit like Avenger of Zendikar to me where he draws a ton of attention and doesn't do anything until next turn... I could see him going out for something else...
Strata Scythe big expensive buff with no evasion... I dont like how much it takes to get this online and still have no evasion. Still, if I already have evasion this could totally wreck someone.
Gaea's Embrace it seems a bit middle of the road... its an aura as well so its done when thrun dies. It does a lot of useful things but being an aura is the main problem currently.
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[Modern] Allies
For me, Strata Scythe and Rogue's Passage have been insane. Both have won games the turn they hit the field. I'm considering taking out the smaller gear, as I am somewhat weak to mass artifact destruction. I'm also trying on packages that aren't equips/enchants, like Increasing Savagery, to keep Thrun robust.
It's also been very key for me to have a dense tutor and draw package. Green Sun, Fauna Shaman, Brutalizer, Fierce Empath, Worldly Tutor, Summoner's Pact have all been crucial. So has recursion: Eternal Witness and Genesis, plus Creeping Rennaissance.
I've found mono green has tons of removal. Break some mana rocks and blow up land with Terrastodon, that's great. Lightning Greaves has been strong too, for protecting Thrun's big buddies as well as haste.
What I really want is away to reliably get a Jester's Cap online. Then it will be a really solid anti combo deck.
Overall record: 139-98-15
Total number of matches: 252
Win percentage ignoring draws: 58.649789
Win percentage including draws: 55.158730