Sea At Night by Alton Melbye (1865). Fell Flagship by Titus Lunter.
Writing about EDH every week can be a bit of a challenge. I probably build anywhere from 8-10 full decks each year, but I think about building many more than that. Today is going to be another exploration of a how I might build around a commander I've been thinking about for a long time.
That commander is Karona, False God.
Karona is an odd legendary. First off, the card appears to not have a creature type, but the oracle text tells us that Karona is an Avatar, not a God. She's a 5 color commander, so we'll be able to play anything we like in our deck, and she's got haste and some really interesting abilities. At the beginning of each player's upkeep, they untap and gain control of our hasty 5/5 commander. If that wasn't enough - whenever Karona attacks, creatures of the type of your choice get +3/+3 until end of turn.
This means we're running a commander who can be used against us by our opponents. They might even make a point of trying to kill us with her if they find that to be a particularly hilarious idea or a challenge worth trying to achieve. While that might make her a questionable choice if you really want to win games, it should also be an interesting and unique challenge to build and run her.
Converting Gahiji
This project isn't a deck I'll be building from scratch. I only have so much room in my life for whimsical midrange decks. The deck I'll be converting is a Gahiji deck I built earlier this year. My Gahiji deck was built around trying to encourage my opponents to attack anyone other than me, and to eventually build up a way to eliminate whoever is left once my board has enough creatures to pose a threat. It's a Naya pillowfort build that I never even felt good enough about to load into tappedout.net. I load all my decks into tappedout so it's saying something if I never got to that stage with the deck. I did manage to win one game with Gahiji, but I still never felt that good about it.
The reason my mind went to my Gahiji deck when thinking about Karona is that I really don't want my opponents to gain control of Karona and then attack me with her. That's pretty much the worst possible scenario when you're playing a commander that everyone else also gets to play with. They can attack you with her if they feel like it, so a pillowfort strategy is the best way I could think of to try to stop them from doing that.
Building a 5/c Pillowfort
If we've got a Naya pillowfort and we want to change to a 5 color deck, we get to add in an old favorite pillowfort card - Propaganda! If we bring in our Gahiji Naya pillowfort cards we could have a pretty nice lineup of ways to discourage our opponents from attacking us.
Propaganda is the classic blue enchantment that forces your opponents to pay 2 for each creature they control that's attacking you. It's fantastic against wide boards or players who are short on mana. Ghostly Prison is the white equivalent and Sphere of Safety scales up with the number of enchantments you control. Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs will give you 3/3 red Ogres if your opponents attack you and don't pay 3 mana for each attacking creature. Teferi's Moat lets you lock out any non-flyers of the color of your choice. That should work fine to keep Karona away so long as she doesn't learn to fly.
Fixing a 5 Color Manabase
Your manabase will probably be better than mine. I'm probably going to build this with all 5 obelisks, all 5 panoramas, and lots of other bad lands. I may well throw in every guildgate just to make a point, but that doesn't mean you have to build a bad manabase. Whatever you do for your lands, you'll probably want to add some extra help.
The two classic "any color" mana dorks, Birds of Paradise and Sylvan Caryatid belong in this deck. I don't own a copy of Bloom Tender yet but for a deck like this, I should probably pick one up even though it's a little more than I usually spend on cards. Joiner Adept doesn't actually produce mana, but it and Chromatic Lantern will both help us cast Karona. Lantern also taps for mana, as do lots of other mana rocks we'll want to put into the deck.
The Vow Cycle
If we want Karona to get passed around, have lots of fun but not actually pose a threat to us, there's a cycle of auras we need to include in our build. The Vow auras all specify that the enchanted creature can't attack us or a planeswalker we control. The other abilities they grant are nice extras but what we really want is for Karona to attack someone other than us if she's going to attack at all.
These Vow cards all give the enchanted creature +2/+2. The white Vow of Duty also gives vigilance. Vow of Flight, in blue, predictably gives flying. Vow of Malice is black and gives intimidate. Vow of Lightning grants an ability commonly found in red - first strike. The green Vow of Wildness brings us the greenest of evergreen keywords - trample. Any of these are pretty good. If we ever get to "Magical Christmasland" and Karona becomes a 15/15 with vigilance, flying, intimidate, first strike and trample, things are going to get pretty exciting.
Fog Effects
If we can show our opponents that if they attack us we won't take any damage, hopefully they will decide that it's easier just to send their attackers elsewhere. That means that we're at least going to consider running fogs and creatures that gives us the ability to fog.
Fog and Constant Mists are two of the many, many green instants we could run that prevent combat damage. Darkness is the black version of a fog, and is worth running if we get a kick out of using all our colors and running odd cards some players might not have heard of before. Creatures like Kami of False Hope and Spore Frog can act as a blocker, signal to our opponents that they shouldn't bother to attack us, and actually serve as a fog if we do actually need one.
Deterrence
There are lots of other ways to deter our opponents from attacking us, and since there's no death so ignominious as being killed by your own commander, we're going to run as many as possible.
Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist will keep our opponent from attacking us with more than one creature if we can find a way to tap her. A vehicle or two might come in handy for that. Gahiji, Honored One absolutely belongs in this deck, as he will give our opponents a really good reason to send their attackers elsewhere, especially if they're going wide. Crawlspace will keep those wide boards from swinging in on us. Maze of Ith and Thaumatic Compass, which flips to become Spires of Orazca will both do nicely to pick Karona out of a field of attackers that are coming at us.
Better Blockers
We're going to want to run more creatures that you've seen so far. If we're serious about building a pillowfort, creatures that can block lots of attackers are one way to try to get the job done. They won't do much against attackers with trample, but being able to throw one of these guys in front of a bunch of incoming creatures will sometimes pay off nicely.
Palace Guard is the cheapest option, costing 2 and a white mana, and can block any number of creatures. Watcher in the Web can block 8 creatures, but has the added advantage of being able to block flyers. Ironfist Crusher may be hard to read, but this creature can be cast face down and flipped up as a surprise to essentially fog any attacking army that doesn't have flying, unblockability or trample. Guardian of the Gateless has flying, and gets pumped +1/+1 until end of turn for each creature it's blocking. Hundred-Handed One can block 100 creatures if you've paid its monstrosity cost. That Monstrosity 3 does have a heavy reliance on white mana, so it might be a bad pick for a 5 color deck.
Extras
As with any build, there are going to be some final things we simply have to throw in. Karona is no exception. So far we've just touched upon what we could throw into this deck. The Commander 2017 Curse cycle might make sense, and we probably want to add a lot more creatures. Here are a few cards I think make a lot of sense for Karona.
Assault Suit will allow Karona to get used by an opponent with a sacrifice outlet like Ashnod's Altar and not leave us fretting that we're going to have to recast her. Homeward Path will allow us to respond to someone attacking us with Karona by just tapping it and regaining control of her, if only for the rest of that turn. Running effects that force opponents to attack each turn might work if our opponents won't view that as a reason to attack us. Warmonger Hellkite will allow us to offer to pump up an opponent's creatures if they simply choose to not attack us. Any way to goad Karona will pay off nicely, as the goad effect will result in her having to attack every turn and won't be able to attack us. Jeering Homunculus does this so well, we might even consider running flicker effects both to target him and to use on Karona if we need to. Platinum Emperion is a final way to try to keep our opponents off our back, but it's worth noting that it won't prevent infect or commander damage - just loss of life.
Wiser Minds Than Mine
Every once in a while when I'm writing these articles, I find myself thinking that more experienced deckbuilders surely have found hidden gems that I have no idea even exist. For today's post I asked the good folk at the Facebook group Magic The Gathering EDH-Commander what the perfect cards for Karona might be. A bunch of their suggestions were already on my list but a few of them I had missed somehow. Probably the most impressive list of was from a commenter named Nicola:
I'm not yet sure how much of a "prison" deck I'd want to build, but clearly Nicola knows his stuff. As I said - wiser minds than mine are out there and I'm grateful to be able to elicit contributions from them occasionally.
Clearly Isochron Scepter is an auto-include for this deck and it will pair nicely with Deflecting Palm as well as with Fogs and probably a few other cards as well. O-Kagachi will help act as a rattlesnake card, though it's hard to know for sure how well it will work. Some players just choose to swing into rattlesnakes just to get rid of them. Glacial Chasm is great so long as we have the life to pour into it, and would pair nicely with any effects that force our opponents' creatures to attack each turn if able.
A few other commenters had great suggestions as well. Gabe Polly suggested Assault Suit, which I had already included in my list. Matias Rochiax suggested Teferi's Veil, but in this deck I want Karona to do as much damage as possible, so having her phase out won't really fit with what I'm trying to do. Kevin Ryan runs a politics-focused Karona deck and suggested the Hunted cycle of cards, which all force you to give target opponent a few token creatures when they enter the battlefield. I think the Hunted cycle makes a lot of sense. Hunted Dragon, shown above, is the red version but there is one for every card and they provide a way to help out players with weak early games and just make for a more interesting overall experience. Normally I'd hate to give my opponents anything they can use against us, but this deck is already handing over our most powerful threat for everyone else to use. I might as well add in the cycle of hunted creatures as well. Kevin also suggested running the "Offering" cycle, and the more I think about it, the more that feels like it might also work well. If you're able to pick opponents to give things to, that's a huge incentive for someone to not attack you with Karona because if they do, they're never going to get any of those gifts.
Final Thoughts
I don't have a decklist yet. If you're new to this blog, I more often write "exploratory" articles where I work through the directions I might go in building a deck rather than form up a final decklist. I love the building process and want to encourage other players to find their own path to building around a commander rather than just taking my list. Hopefully today's post has been an interesting exploration of a very interesting commander.
I do think I'm eventually going to flush out this deck, maybe even soon. I know a few things already about where I'm going to go with it. I know I'm not going to add any deathtouch blockers, even though normally any deck I build with black would run Vampire Nighthawk at the very least. I don't ever want to have to choose to let Karona get damage through to me unblocked because my only blocker would kill her.
So far we've got 40 cards listed above - 49 if you include the extra 4 "Hunted" creatures and all 5 "Offering" cards. That leaves maybe 15 more cards and chances are good those are going to have to be ramp and draw. That's OK, and it means that this deck is pretty much ready to be completed. There isn't much extra room once you include those bare necessities.
My suspicion is that I'm going to get frustrated by the number of opponents who think it's hilarious to swing Karona back at me. Honestly, I can't really blame them, but I still think this is an experiment worth following through on. I'll keep you updated as always on how that goes.
Other News
In other news, I'm going to start posting updates on how my decks are doing in a section at the bottom, after Final Thoughts, called Other News. It seems appropriate, though I had half a mind to call it "And now for something completely different". I suppose that makes "Final Thoughts" not quite so final. Maybe think of it as the final thoughts on the topic of the week rather than the final thoughts of the day?
I'll usually update you on how my decks are doing, though other news might well include pretty much anything. Today it's an update on my EDH League.
I'm happy to be able to tell you that the Marath Enraged deck I'm playing this month went from 0-2 to 2-2. Yesterday it won both games and tied the league record for most points in a single day (47). I'm now at the top of our month's rankings and have a good shot at winning the month if I continue to do well. That hadn't been my plan going into the month. I won September and was going to play a weaker deck, but apparently Marath is a pretty powerful commander. I may have to play something fun and more midrange for November. Maybe Zedruu...
The highlight of the day yesterday was basically winning round 2 off of Settle the Wreckage.
I was able to play Elemental Mastery on Marath and with Illusionist's Bracers on him, tap to create 10 elementals with haste. I then attacked with them and cast Settle the Wreckage to exile them all and go get 10 lands. Later in the game, after Marath had been exiled and was in the Command Zone I was able to drop Cathar's Crusade and then Avenger of Zendikar with 20 lands in play. I had enough mana to follow that up with Shamanic Revelation, shooting my life total up over 100 and drawing 21 cards. That move put Earthcraft in my hand, and once that hit the table it was all over. I was able to tap all my creatures to untap my lands, play Impact Tremors, play Marath, play Ashnod's Altar and ping everyone to death.
It was basically all made possible by using Settle the Wreckage on my own creatures. I honestly can't imaging using that card any other way, except maybe against a voltron deck that's about to kick my butt with one huge creature.
That's all I've got for you today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!