Tayam, Luminous Enigma (Let's brew!)

[FoxOfWar]

Tayam, Luminous Enigma

Been tossing this around since it was spoiled, and I find myself in a curious place... can't figure out which direction to go!

This has a lot of potential directions, since 'have some creatures', 'have a decent chunk of your permanents be less than 3 cmc' and 'have some counters lying around' doesn't really point to any particular direction or theme.

Some decent picks I came across:

Anything that triggers on a frequent thing to get a counter, ie. Managorger Hydra/Ravenous Slime/Gideon's Avenger - can either beat with them (even better thanks to the vigilance), or just eat the piling counters to fuel Tayam.

There's a ton of artifacts and enchantments that sac themselves and are pretty mediocre... until you introduce repeated recursion to the picture. Angelic Renewal, Khalni Heart Expedition, Gonti's Machinations, Promise of Bunrei.

Font of Fertility/Vessel of Ephemera/Omen of the Dead cycles look halfway decent too.

Animation Module/Decoction Module/Fabrication Module looks fun since odds are you're going to trigger them all anyway... and they can all be recurred with Tayam.

(Cheap) Planeswalkers also hit a curious point, since recursion makes them look a fair bit better... and they can be used for counters too.

What would you go for with this weird celestial nightmare anteater with horns?

[folding_music]

When I saw Tayam it made me think fondly of Icatian Moneychanger, a terrible card which nevertheless comes into play with three counters on it and costs only one mana :3 but I think a better idea is making a sort of lord for various cards from Amonkhet and Shadowmoor which come into play with boatloads of -1/-1 counters:

Channeler Initiate
Exemplar of Strength
Noxious Hatchling

so you can bring back planeswalkers while unlocking some fairly beefy creatures? Kaya, Orzhov Usurper is so cool and fights other people doing the graveyard thing...

Abzan Ascendancy seems tailor made, Contagion Clasp, Glowspore Shaman, Gorging Vulture and similar cards keep the grave stocked? just a few ideas!

[darrenhabib]

Well at first I was going to make a few suggestions, but then I got caught up in a rabbit hole. There is a lot going on with this commander, far more than I first thought.

Alright well being able to put lands into play as your permanent is incredible ramp!!
Its likely that spending 3 to put a Gaea's Cradle into play will pay for itself.
You could look to Cabal Coffers and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth for a similar approach.
Possibly Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx as well.

The idea is to setup with a mana base that allows you to spend lots of mana on the activation ability of Tayam, Luminous Enigma, for a snow-ball game.

You could look to literally set up a combo that for each land you play you can activate 3 again to put another land into play.
So you'd be using a fetchland like Verdant Catacombs or Prismatic Vista as the target to bring back each time.
You need two mana doublers like Mirari's Wake and Heartbeat of Spring.
Or Nyxbloom Ancient would do it.
Then you also need a way to get 3 counters each time. With Evolution Sage and at least 3 distributed counters among creatures, you can do it as many times as you have lands to search.

You could also look for infinite mana with Squandered Resources and Gaea's Cradle/Cabal Coffers/Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx/Serra's Sanctum.
You need the Evolution Sage as well, but as long as these tap for at least 3 then you can get infinite mana.

There are some excellent ways to tutor for land to graveyard with Entomb and Realms Uncharted.

As far as counters, Barrenton Medic can give you infinite counters to remove.
Devoted Druid with a buff can actually go infinite with both providing mana and counters. Let's say you use Blossoming Defense on it. Now with 4 toughness you can put 3 x -1/-1 counters and get 3 mana.
Cinderhaze Wretch with 4 toughness also works.
Wall of Roots is excellent, but you can't go infinite.
You could look to combine Barrenton Medic or Cinderhaze Wretch with cards that tap them for mana to go infinite as well; Earthcraft, Song of Freyalise, Cryptolith Rite, Rishkar, Peema Renegade.

Harbinger of Night can give you a consistent amount of counters each turn, while also able to kill off your opponents creatures.

Other ways to get counters; Scute Mob, Grateful Apparition, Good-Fortune Unicorn, Forgotten Ancient, Sunscorch Regent, Ammit Eternal, Biogenic Ooze, Nissa, Voice of Zendikar, Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest, Grismold, the Dreadsower, Gavony Township.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician can make -1/-1 counters and can also proliferate.

Tetzimoc, Primal Death is a way of spending black mana to get counters on your own creatures.

Golgari Grave-Troll both fuels the graveyard and provides +1/+1 counters for the right sort of deck.

Interestingly "Cumulative upkeep" are counters, so you can use Tayam, Luminous Enigma to reduce the age counters. However there are not that many exciting options in Abzan.
Jötun Grunt maybe being the best of them, as it can control opponents graveyard strategies as well as giving you counters.
Sustaining Spirit could be good further into the game.

The First Iroan Games has a lot of value for this strategy, and its a card you can bring back into play with Tayam.

Some removal to keep in mind as 3 cmc permanents that you can sacrifice to reuse; Caustic Caterpillar, Aura of Silence, Seal of Cleansing, Seal of Primordium, Seal of Doom.

Sakura-Tribe Elder is a decent target to bring back for land ramp.

Freyalise's Winds can be used to especially good effect with mana creatures. Tapping them for mana to simply remove the wind counters and bring a permanent from graveyard and being able to untap them for the untap step, while opponents get locked down more.

[motleyslayer]

I was really intrigued by this when it was spoiled, it might be my next deck. There are a bunch of cool proliferate and cards that gives themselves -1/-1 counters. I could probably find some cool utility creatures without much effort

[Wallycaine]

If you're already planning on running Saga's , it might be worth poking at enchantment animation effects, such as Starfield of Nyx or Opalescence. If you can make your Saga's into creatures, you can make them repeatable with Tayam's abilities, which feels like it should be fairly strong.

[FoxOfWar]

Now that I think about it, leaning towards Saga/Curse/sac enchantress reanimation might be a thing. I have an enchantress deck, but it's more focused towards animating lands for fun and profit so the only overlap would likely be the enchantress effects themselves for draw...

[Mookie]

When I saw Tayam, my first instinct was to run it as a reverse Tasigur, the Golden Fang, with a focus of primarily returning lands from the graveyard. You could recur Wood Elves or Sakura-Tribe Elder repeatedly... but that's sort of just extra effort. Do need a repeatable source of counter production, but there are a lot of options for that - all the usual combos-with-Ghave cards (Cathars' Crusade, Juniper Order Ranger, etc), but also any landfall token producer (ex: Emeria Angel, Rampaging Baloths, etc).

....I already have several decks with a land/ramp theme, but none with an explicit landfall theme, so may be interesting to expand on that. I would worry about overlap with the other decks, but they very definitely don't have any overlap with counter generation, so not too worried.

[Cyberium]

A more difficult option could be Enduring Renewal. Tayam requires counters on creatures, ER can return creatures while dumping ones into GY for you to revive later. The problem with ER is that Tayam can only return small creatures, but a simple Animate Dead can alleviate it.