As we continue making decks which give things away this holiday season, I thought it'd be fun to build a deck which gives away mana. This is an interesting prospect, and not actually as easy as you'd think. I mean, sure, you can do it, but it's hard to do consistently, and most of the time it's a downside to an effect (like Gifting a Treasure or something).

But looking around, there's an old card from 2005's Betrayers of Kamigawa block I'd honestly never heard of before. Check this bad girl out.

This Snake was apparently a rival of another Snake, and believed all the snakes (Orochi) should be able to prosper. She apparently represents that by... you guessed it. Giving away mana!

For our , we get a 2/3 with a single extra ability: every player, at the beginning of their Upkeep, gets . It doesn't cause mana burn (ha!), and it sticks around until the end of turn, when it will finally go away in the Cleanup step.

Notable in a game of Commander: every player will get , and they can use that mana normally. I suppose this could matter if someone has an ability that lets them cast spells from other players' decks and doesn't have the modern rider where they can use mana of any color to do it? Say, for example, you're playing against Ramirez DePietro, Pillager. If they do damage to someone and Exile a Green card, they can use the mana you give them to cast it.

So, we're going to give people mana, and we're going to do it every turn. That should help keep some heat off our Commander - not that she's that threatening to begin with - and hopefully earn us some good will.

...Because honestly, that's where the nice stuff stops. Most people are going to go into the game assuming they'll get the normal amount of mana. We, on the other hand, are going to build a deck knowing we're always going to have three extra... pretty much every turn.

Shizuko, Caller of Autumn | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Shizuko, Caller of Autumn

• Creatures (32)
• 1 Ant Queen
• 1 Apex Devastator
• 1 Arbor Elf
• 1 Avatar of Growth
• 1 Beast Whisperer
• 1 Boreal Druid
• 1 Bramble Sovereign
• 1 Delighted Halfling
• 1 Disciple of Freyalise
• 1 Elvish Mystic
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Fanatic of Rhonas
• 1 Fyndhorn Elves
• 1 Genesis Hydra
• 1 Giant Adephage
• 1 Hydra Broodmaster
• 1 Kogla, the Titan Ape
• 1 Llanowar Elves
• 1 Magus of the Vineyard
• 1 Nyxbloom Ancient
• 1 Old-Growth Dryads
• 1 Omnath, Locus of Mana
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Rootweaver Druid
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Soul of the Harvest
• 1 Surrak and Goreclaw
• 1 Terastodon
• 1 Vaultborn Tyrant
• 1 Wolfbriar Elemental
• 1 Woodfall Primus
• 1 Worldspine Wurm

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
• 1 Nissa, Ascended Animist

• Instants (8)
• 1 Arachnogenesis
• 1 Archdruid's Charm
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Fog
• 1 Hunter's Insight
• 1 Lifestream's Blessing
• 1 Return of the Wildspeaker
• 1 Tangle

• Sorceries (10)
• 1 Collective Voyage
• 1 Ezuri's Predation
• 1 Genesis Wave
• 1 Harmonize
• 1 New Frontiers
• 1 Overwhelming Stampede
• 1 Rishkar's Expertise
• 1 Season of Gathering
• 1 Tempt with Discovery
• 1 Turntimber Symbiosis

• Enchantments (8)
• 1 Eladamri's Vineyard
• 1 Garruk's Uprising
• 1 Heartbeat of Spring
• 1 Helix Pinnacle
• 1 Rites of Flourishing
• 1 Sandwurm Convergence
• 1 Vernal Bloom
• 1 Zendikar Resurgent

• Lands (39)
• 27 Forest
• 1 Blighted Woodland
• 1 Bonders' Enclave
• 1 Branch of Vitu-Ghazi
• 1 Castle Garenbrig
• 1 Field of Ruin
• 1 Gingerbread Cabin
• 1 Lair of the Hydra
• 1 Mosswort Bridge
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 War Room

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This deck will be an absolute hoot. It's a Bracket 2 Stompy deck, where it's going to sit there for three turns, play the Commander, and then suddenly start exploding all over the Battlefield. Will it dominate most tables? No. But it'll cause a problem for most of the other players - because they won't want to give up the extra mana, but they'll be awfully nervous about your board state.

We start with 39 Lands, which is one fewer than normal but our Commander spits out mana for us many turns (unless the table decides to work really hard to keep us from having our Commander out during our Upkeep) and we have a Double-Sided Land card we can use in a pinch. Most of them are Basic Forests, but we've got a few fun ones which work well especially in mono-color decks, like War Room and Bonders' Enclave (in decks with more colors, it can be hard to run cards which tap for colorless). Gingerbread Cabin is a Forest with a bonus, Mosswort Bridge will trigger right away a lot of the time, and Blighted Woodland and Myriad Landscape both ramp us nicely.

In addition, we're doing something I rarely do: running mana dorks. I know, some people like them, and aside from Sol Ring they're one of the few one-mana ways to actually jump mana, so they have a place. I find them too fragile and generally want mana which will survive the first Wrath of God. But in this case, it's worth it because if it means we can get Shizuko out a little early, we can get the party started right away, so Llanowar Elves it is. We have six of them ain Green, so we'll see them decently often in our opening hand. We also have Sakura-Tribe Elder and Fanatic of Rhonas in the two-mana slot, and Eladamri's Vineyard as a Green Enchantment which starts giving everyone every turn. That should make some people happy on turn one.

We can draw a few ways. Beast Whisperer, Soul of the Harvest, Vaultborn Tyrant, and Garruk's Uprising all bring extra cards when we cast Creatures. Zendikar Resurgent does too, plus it doubles our mana - a bit silly at 7 mana itself, but still. Great fun. Hunter's Insight is one of my favorites and will often draw six or more. Lifestream's Blessing, Return of the Wildspeaker, and Season of Gathering all grab us a bunch, and Rishkar's Expertise gives us a free spell for our trouble. Speaking of free spells, Genesis Hydra gives us a free one as well (that's why we don't mind doubling our mana!), and Genesis Wave will drop a ton of cards on the 'field for us.

Ultimately, we're going to beat people up with hilarious Creatures like Giant Adephage and Surrak and Goreclaw. The list I made of big beaters are ones I either like or think are strong, but feel free to slot in whatever beefcakes you want to run in this space. Apex Devastator should be pretty funny here.

Though that's not the only thing. Ant Queen is a fun way to use a bunch of extra mana, and getting run over by a swarm of Ants with an Overwhelming Stampede (or even the alternate use of Return of the Wildspeaker) would be pretty hilarious. Then there's the Helix Pinnacle line, where you lay that out early and just start dumping mana into it every chance you get, racing to 100. Shouldn't take too long.

We have a few cards like Reclamation Sage and Beast Within for tricky, problematic permanents. Fogs are always fun in Commander, and are normally quite surprising, so we're running them: Fog itself, but Arachnogenesis should be hilarious, and Tangle should make someone available to die pretty fast. Even something like Ezuri's Predation can be pretty darn effective at cleaning up the board in our favor.

Since we're the "give away mana" deck, we have more than just Shizuko to help out. Collective Voyage and Tempt with Discovery both let us hand out Lands. In addition to Eladamri's Vineyard, we've got Heartbeat of Spring, Rites of Flourishing, and Vernal Bloom to give away more mana. Rootweaver Druid is super cool for us, granting more mana for us and everyone else. Old-Growth Dryads is a fun turn-one play, should it happen, but at any point it's fun. Magus of the Vineyard is Eladamri's Vineyard on a body, and Avatar of Growth is like Primeval Titan if they'd made Prime Time just for this deck.

This is the sort of deck which creates really fun, interactive games. It has just enough Group Hug to supercharge the table - everyone will benefit from the extra mana - and just enough oomph to surprise some players, while never being unfair or unfun. I suspect I'll build this in real life, because having fun, easy decks like this is are always great to have around.

Thanks for reading.