For those of you not keeping score of my journey with Commander, my first foray into the format was Anowon, the Ruin Sage Vampire Kindred. I was coming off the back of Mono-Black Vamps in Innistrad Standard so I had many of the cards. Then Sheoldred, Whispering One came out and I converted to this evil Mono-Black control monstrosity which just made the table sad.

But my second deck was Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer.

I played that deck into the ground. It made massive plays. Basically, all it did was ramp and play huge spells. Genesis Wave for 30 wasn't unusual. Molimo one-shotting an opponent on turn eight happened. The deck was very, very cool.

I've since upgraded Molimo to Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar, who's cheaper and gets much bigger (now fetch Lands help me?!). Such is power creep. But the point is - the second deck I ever built was a huge, Mono-Green Stompy deck which just powered through my opponents. I've won a lot of games with that deck, and several of my most memorable plays are with that one. I've since built a number of other stompy decks, including another favorite, my Xenagos, God of Revels deck.

So, imagine my surprise when I was perusing our Avatar spoilers and found a guy who tickles my huge Green Creature-loving heart. Get a load of this Ape... er... Goat... er... pet?

Whatever he is, he's got a soft belly and is a very good boy.

Flopsie is a 4/4 for six mana. This is, especially in Green, *not* a particularly good deal. However, he's really a 5/5 because he puts a counter on himself when he Enters. And his second ability is where he really shines, because now all our big Creatures get a lot harder to block. Sure, they can be blocked, but only by one thing - which means if I have a 9/9 or something, you're not killing it in Combat unless you've got some big stuff yourself.

The thing about Molimo (and Multani now) is one aspect of the way it plays I've never loved - it's all-in on the Commander. Sure, I run a couple of other big Creatures, but mostly the goal is to make Multani as big as possible and swing away. Flopsie, on the other hand, invites other Creatures to the table. Other, shall we say, big friends. They get to come over and play. And only get blocked by one thing too.

We're talking this guy.

Maybe a little bit of this guy.

And has there ever been a better home for this one?

So we're going to do some ramping, we're going to play out some Creatures, and we're going to cast Flopsie and attack, knowing full-well our attacks will be quite painful for our opponents, if not deadly. Here's what I came up with.

Flopsie, Bumi's Buddy | Mark Wischkaemper | Commander

• Commander (1)
• 1 Flopsie, Bumi's Buddy

• Creatures (34)
• 1 Apex Altisaur
• 1 Armorcraft Judge
• 1 Arwen, Weaver of Hope
• 1 Avenger of Zendikar
• 1 Badgermole
• 1 Beast Whisperer
• 1 Benevolent Hydra
• 1 Brawn
• 1 Crowned Ceratok
• 1 Defiler of Vigor
• 1 Disciple of Freyalise
• 1 Drix Fatemaker
• 1 Elder Gargaroth
• 1 End-Raze Forerunners
• 1 Evolution Sage
• 1 Fanatic of Rhonas
• 1 Forgotten Ancient
• 1 Ghalta, Primal Hunger
• 1 Goldvein Hydra
• 1 Gyre Sage
• 1 Incubation Druid
• 1 Kalonian Hydra
• 1 Kogla, the Titan Ape
• 1 Loyal Guardian
• 1 Nylea, God of the Hunt
• 1 Primordial Sage
• 1 Quilled Greatwurm
• 1 Railway Brawler
• 1 Renata, Called to the Hunt
• 1 Rishkar, Peema Renegade
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Spider-Man, Miles Morales
• 1 Surrak and Goreclaw
• 1 Toski, Bearer of Secrets

• Instants (9)
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Hunter's Insight
• 1 Inspiring Call
• 1 Khalni Ambush // Khalni Territory
• 1 Krosan Grip
• 1 Ram Through
• 1 Return to Nature
• 1 Return of the Wildspeaker
• 1 Snakeskin Veil

• Sorceries (5)
• 1 Bridgeworks Battle
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Explore
• 1 Nature's Lore
• 1 Three Visits

• Enchantments (8)
• 1 Elemental Bond
• 1 Garruk's Uprising
• 1 Hardened Scales
• 1 Master Chef
• 1 Terrasymbiosis
• 1 Thickest in the Thicket
• 1 Unnatural Growth
• 1 Web of Life and Destiny

• Artifacts (2)
• 1 Herd Heirloom
• 1 Pictures of Spider-Man

• Lands (40)
• 32 Forest
• 1 Blighted Woodland
• 1 Karn's Bastion
• 1 Mosswort Bridge
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 War Room

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As per usual, we start with our Lands. We have 40, and most of them are basics so we can hunt them down easily with our ramp spells. We have a bunch of those too. Normally, as a casual player, I'm a fan of 3-mana ramp because you get more (Cultivate gets you two for only one more mana than, say, Rampant Growth), but this is an interesting situation because we're not just racing for our Commander - we want a compelling board state first, then cast Flopsie for a big ol' alpha strike. Since we're only getting Forests, I stuck with ramp spells which leave the Land untapped in the two-mana realm (Nature's Lore and Three Visits), though Sakura-Tribe Elder is here because that thing can actually be a problem if drawn late as a Creature. Explore works fine with this many Lands. Herd Heirloom is our one-mana rock, here because that extra ability can matter a lot (tap that thing after blockers and make someone very sad). Then we've got a couple of mana dorks, which aren't normally my thing either (too fragile) but here work great; Fanatic of Rhonas will pretty much tap for every time, Gyre Sage will often tap for more than that, and Incubation Druid is the small one at three mana. Oh, and Rishkar, Peema Renegade will turn basically our entire team into mana dorks. The risks are worth it for the jolt of extra mana we'll get.

Drawing cards in Green has become so easy I actually had to cut some - and I still wonder if there's too much (there isn't. That's nearly impossible!). Pictures of Spider-Man is a fun one, since it digs us five for the two best Creatures, but Armorcraft Judge will normally draw us several, as will Disciple of Freyalise. Then we've got our draw-when-something-Enters cards, like Elemental Bond, Beast Whisperer, or Primordial Sage. Toski, Bearer of Secrets gives everyone a chance to draw. Elder Gargaroth can be quite the card-draw engine, and Terrasymbiosis was made for this one. Thickest in the Thicket, too.

Then we get to the fun part. We get to play a bunch of huge Creatures, stick a counter (or five) on them, and swing in for huge damage, forcing our opponents to block with only one Creature each. We have a bunch of these, and most of them add more +1/+1 counters or otherwise mess with that. A few highlights include Quilled Greatwurm, which lets us cast it from our 'yard, Loyal Guardian, who keeps throwing counters on things for us, and Spider-Man, Miles Morales, who also keeps sticking counters on stuff for us. I leaned into the counter thing, with Kalonian Hydra and Benevolent Hydra, but Avenger of Zendikar is also awesome here. Defiler of Vigor is great, of course, and Apex Altisaur functions as a kill spell in addition to being huge. Ghalta is really here because she's huge.

We have a few fight spells and some Naturalize variants, including Khalni Ambush // Khalni Territory, Bridgeworks Battle, and Return to Nature. Ram Through was built for a deck like this. Some of our Creatures kill stuff when they enter, like Kogla, the Titan Ape. I'm a big fan of Snakeskin Veil here as a one-of Combat trick, too.

The big thing we're trying to do other than put counters on stuff and make it huge is give things Trample. We have a number of ways to do it, including Nylea, God of the Hunt, Badgermole, and Brawn. There are also a few other cards I'd like to highlight specifically.

Unnatural Growth is crazy here. One attack with that Enchantment active will likely end someone's time in the game, if not the entire table. It will take hate, so make sure you deploy it just before a massive attack and make it a really good one. Keep in mind it works every Combat, so anything not tapped will have double stats for Blocking as well.

Web of Life and Destiny is one of my favorite cards from Spider-Man. Every turn we get a free Creature, basically, which is an incredibly powerful effect. It really doesn't matter what we get - if it triggers once, we're fine. If it triggers more than once, we're rolling in value.

We also have a small Proliferate theme, just to use extra mana or gain some value when we can. Why not, right?

I'd love to have Vigor in this deck, but I couldn't find the room. Same with Branching Evolution. Craterhoof Behemoth seems overkill, but if you've got a stack of 'em and want to run it that wouldn't be bad.

Finally, there's one more interaction which might be worth exploring, though I decided not to with this deck. If you give a Creature Menace, and it has Power 4 or greater, and Flopsie is out - it's unblockable. Blockers just can't be declared. That'd be a much meaner version, though it's not super intuitive how to give the entire team Menace in Mono-Green. If you wanted to, though, you could run Chitinous Cloak or Glaive of the Guildpact and have a way to ensure your Creatures get through. I like giving opponents the choice, though.

This is the kind of deck I think the creators imagined when they designed Commander. Sure, they were thinking only of the Elder Dragons, but this is the vibe they were chasing - big, splashy, fun, and interactive. Every card this deck spits out is like "uh oh" for everyone else - but nothing breaks the game, nothing says "oops, I win", and everything can be responded to. It's wicked fun to pilot and puts a smile on my face. I hope it does for you too.

Thanks for reading.