I’ve been revisiting green cards in Commander recently. In the last few weeks, I’ve learned a few things from my experiments with Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer in particular. First: One-shotting opponents with enormous, hasty, tramply monsters is a ton of fun. Second: A deck that reliant on a commander that expensive just doesn’t cut it most of the time.

I’m not ready to give up on the build-your-own Blightsteel Colossus plan just yet though. The deck just needs something else to up the power and consistency—another color perhaps.

One of the first Commander decks I ever built was an Azami, Lady of Scrolls deck that focused on going aggressive with Diviner's Wand, Inspired Sprite, and Merrow Levitator. You could High Tide a few times, cast a bunch of blue spells and Wizards, and get in for 21 points of commander damage without too much trouble.

This week, I want to revisit the Diviner's Wand beatdown plan since that’s one of my favorite cards that I think receives way less respect than it deserves. I want to try building a deck that’s equal parts engine and beatdown; I’ll keep things aggressive but build the deck with a little more flex and resiliency. Let’s send Prime Speaker Zegana into the red zone.

Most Zegana builds I’ve seen try to bury opponents in cards and monsters, usually leaning heavily on powerful cards such as Seedborn Muse, Prophet of Kruphix, and Consecrated Sphinx to power through their decks and generate enough mana to leverage that advantage. There are plenty of decks that do that. I think it’s more interesting to try to do something aggressive with those cards instead. There are three key types of I want to focus on for this deck.

Next is the interaction that led me to this style of deck in the first place: pump spells plus Zegana. This is a little more subtle, but super-important for an aggressive Zegana deck. Cast Invigorate on Zegana or another creature to gain 4 extra power toward your lethal attack and four more cards when Zegana’s trigger resolves. Does turning Giant Growth into Ancestral Recall sound good to you?

Finally, we have the card that makes the one-shot possible: Diviner's Wand. Did you notice that Zegana is a Wizard? That it draws cards? Imagine casting Zegana, attaching Diviner's Wand for free, and casting Giant Growth before resolving the card-draw trigger. Draw three extra cards and generate 3 extra power off Diviner's Wand. Zegana is already at least a 7/7 with no other creatures onboard. If we have a random 3/3, she’s a 13/13. Oh, by the way, she also has flying for the turn. It doesn’t take much to start killing people, but even if you are shut down by removal, you’ve just drawn six or more cards. That makes it easy to set up again, which is why this deck is more promising than the Molimo build.

So that’s the shell. Haste. Pump. Diviner's Wand. Dead opponents. The big question is how you support the engine to make it as consistent and resilient as possible. Before giving you the list, I want to share a few of the key players to give you an idea of just how powerful this style of deck can be:

• Wolfir Silverheart and Druid's Familiar – How unfair is it to pair Zegana with Wolfir Silverheart? Does generating thirteen cards and 13 power off just those two cards sound good? How about thirteen cards and 26 power with Diviner's Wand?
• Batterskull – Resiliency is key. This makes sure you have a guy for Zegana, gives you a backup plan, and lets you suit Zegana up for the last few points of damage.
• Birthing Pod and Chord of Calling – You want to play mana Elves like Wood Elves as ramp. Being able to turn them into real creatures such as Wolfir Silverheart is just not fair.
• Summer Bloom – If you’re going to draw a ton of cards, leverage them into an advantage instead of discarding them. Keep up with the commander tax, and enable more powerful late-game shenanigans.

So with these ideas in place, I think we’re ready to take a look at a tentative list. Here’s what I have:

One-Shot Zegana ? Commander | Carlos Gutierrez

• Commander (0)

• Lands (39)
• 1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
• 1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
• 1 Hall of the Bandit Lord
• 1 Cavern of Souls
• 1 Opal Palace
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Hinterland Harbor
• 1 Temple of Mystery
• 1 Llanowar Reborn
• 1 Vesuva
• 1 Thespian's Stage
• 1 Mosswort Bridge
• 1 Simic Growth Chamber
• 1 Tolaria West
• 1 High Market
• 1 Miren, the Moaning Well
• 1 Alchemist's Refuge
• 1 Deserted Temple
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 7 Island
• 12 Forest

• Ramp (12)
• 1 Summer Bloom
• 1 Explore
• 1 Journey of Discovery
• 1 Urban Evolution
• 1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
• 1 Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
• 1 Ranger's Path
• 1 Skyshroud Claim
• 1 Explosive Vegetation
• 1 Sylvan Scrying
• 1 Expedition Map

• Creatures (26)
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Silverglade Elemental
• 1 Farhaven Elf
• 1 Yavimaya Granger
• 1 Yavimaya Dryad
• 1 Ondu Giant
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 1 Vigor
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 1 Woodfall Primus
• 1 Thriss, Nantuko Primus
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Indrik Stomphowler
• 1 Genesis Hydra
• 1 Snapcaster Mage
• 1 Thragtusk
• 1 Wolfir Silverheart
• 1 Deadwood Treefolk
• 1 Forgotten Ancient
• 1 Deadeye Navigator
• 1 Duplicant
• 1 Draining Whelk
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine
• 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1 Clone
• 1 Phantasmal Image

• Equipment (10)
• 1 Sword of Light and Shadow
• 1 Trading Post
• 1 Diviner's Wand
• 1 Fabricate
• 1 Drift of Phantasms
• 1 Runechanter's Pike
• 1 Tezzeret the Seeker
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Empyrial Plate

• Spells (12)
• 1 Green Sun's Zenith
• 1 Chord of Calling
• 1 Birthing Pod
• 1 Invigorate
• 1 Mutagenic Growth
• 1 Might of Old Krosa
• 1 Primal Bellow
• 1 Groundswell
• 1 Vines of Vastwood
• 1 Giant Growth
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Ghostly Flicker

Buy This Deck

One of my fears for this deck is that it’s a little too focused on ramp spells and that there isn’t quite enough business. You’re going to be able to draw all the cards you could possibly need, so I imagine mana being a much larger constraint than cards; it’s just hard to say how much is enough without playing quite a few games first.

You’re going to be casting Zegana quite a few times, especially with High Market and Miren, the Moaning Well to reset the trigger. You can use Vesuva, Deserted Temple, and even Thespian's Stage to make extra copies of Opal Palace to dump your extra mana into and generate a ton of extra +1/+1 counters. This effect isn’t cheap since the cost scales with the number of times you’ve cast Zegana. The upside is that it single-handedly refuels you and threatens lethal without requiring you to resolve any other spells. Zegana can even be uncounterable off Cavern of Souls. Take that, blue decks!

The thing that this deck needs most is more interactive elements. Right now, you basically only have Cyclonic Rift and a couple of random utility guys. The rest of the deck is single-mindedly focused on ramping into Zegana kills. The reason for this is so that, even after just a few games, you can determine the viability of the primary game plan: hitting people for 21 commander damage. If the deck doesn’t function when it’s this focused on that plan, you can scrap the idea altogether. If the plan does work, you can start shaving the cards that are less powerful or necessary to add in the more fun, interactive cards that let you play real games instead of mostly solitaire.

Ulvenwald Tracker – This color combination doesn’t have many ways to deal with creatures. Zegana will be plenty big enough to pick off anything too problematic.

Treasure Mage – Tutoring for things like Steel Hellkite and Duplicant could be an awesome way to add interaction without cutting too many enormous monsters.

Commandeer, Force of Will, and Bounty of the Hunt – If this deck draws half as many cards as I think it does, free interaction is always a good thing. The downside should be pretty minimal, and free spells are pretty insane.

Psychosis Crawler – This guy is an alternate win condition that applies pressure to the entire table and is enormous for subsequent Zegana recastings.

Novijen, Heart of Progress – It’s another Oran-Rief, but it’s expensive to use. If mana is an actual constraint despite all the ramp, this probably isn’t good enough

Nim Deathmantle – Old faithful. This deck has plenty of value creatures, a handful of sacrifice outlets, and plenty of mana. That means that Nim Deathmantle is an incredible way to grind out value in the midgame. All of my other decks already abuse Nim Deathmantle, so I’m passing on it here to try some new things, but it’s still very powerful in this type of shell.

And that’s where I’m headed next. Green experiments were fun and interesting, but I think adding blue makes the decks much more powerful and resilient without sacrificing very much. I’m still very excited about doing busted things with Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant and billions of mana, but this is a deck that’s unique, robust, and powerful enough that I can see making its way into my regular rotation of commanders. Expect to hear back in a few weeks to see how the experiment is going! In the meantime, here are a few parting thoughts:

Whispers of the Muse

• How many Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle triggers can I generate with Burnished Hart and Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient?
• Ghoulcaller Gisa. Nim Deathmantle. Thornbite Staff. If you’re me, you throw in Ashen-Skin Zubera for good measure, though I guess something like Sepulchral Primordial will work, too.
• Lashwrithe. Nightmare Lash. Disciple of Bolas. Why isn’t this a thing in some kind of Ob Nixilis, the Fallen turbo-land build?