Archelos, Lagoon Mystic - Sanctuary of the Mystic

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

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I did a thread on Mystic Sanctuary singing its praises and explaining interactions when it was released and as part of that I posted a deck list that was land centric.
You can check out that thread here => viewtopic.php?f=24&t=21132

What I've done is sort of adapted some of the concepts from that and also another Sultai lands deck I had (with Tasigur, the Golden Fang as Commander) and merged them into Archelos, Lagoon Mystic brew.
First of all Archelos lets permanents come into play untapped and if you read the Mystic Sanctuary stipulation it will trigger if it comes into play untapped. Therefore you don't actually need the three other Islands and this means that your land base can be a whole lot more mixed.

Essentially this is a lands deck. There are 60 of them. Lands can be very powerful with a lot of different abilities for toolboxing.

The general core theme is that it uses mass removal spells to clear the board of nonland permanents while establishing a massive land base along the way.
With ways to keep reusing Mystic Sanctuary trigger you can keep putting some of the instant or sorcery mass removal cards back on top to keep wiping the board.

The other main goal is that you are looking put a lot of lands into play off certain cards.
There is Splendid Reclamation and World Shaper that put lands into play from your graveyard. They normally come into play tapped but with Archelos you'll get to use those lands straight away.
To supplement this there are ways to put cards into your graveyard in a big way.
Oath of Druids with only 2 creature in the 99 means that you mill a lot of your deck. As World Shaper is one of those then when it dies you'll get all those lands.
Life from the Loam is also a graveyard fuel engine and we are using cycling land cards to maintain getting other draws as well if necessary.

Scapeshift sacrifices lands so the Splendid Reclamation and World Shaper will get the lands you sacrifice back into play.

The idea of putting cards into your graveyard is that it gives you more options for Mystic Sanctuary as well.
Often it will be Splendid Reclamation for a lands setup early on in the game, but at other times when your opponents have gotten enough permanents onto the battlefield then you'll look to Devastation Tide/Cyclonic Rift to keep bouncing permanents or All Is Dust/Gaze of Granite to remove them permanently.
The Great Aurora shuffles all permanents into players libraries and with such a massive land count you'll bound to get a lot ahead in lands than opponents and the element of randomness of what lands you'll get also seems like a lot of fun.
Further to this there is Toxic Deluge and Decree of Pain to kill creatures.

There is also Nevinyrral's Disk and Oblivion Stone for mass removal and you can keep getting these back with Academy Ruins.
Nevinyrral's Disk comes into play untapped with Archelos so you don't have to wait another turn.
Sanctum of Eternity can return Archelos back to your hand potentially when you are looking to wipe the board.
There are actually a lot of ways to get Archelos back from the graveyard via lands as well and I mention these all in other sections.

The neat thing with Archelos is that if Mystic Sanctuary comes into play off Splendid Reclamation or World Shaper then it will actually trigger because it comes into play untapped.

The way we keep reusing Mystic Sanctuary is via either bouncing it back to hand or even by destroying it so that it can be played again if returned to hand.
There are a mutilate of ways to bounce Mystic Sanctuary.
There are the "bounce" lands in Simic Growth Chamber, Golgari Rot Farm, Dimir Aqueduct. Note that these lands come into play untapped with Archelos.
Trade Routes works great with Life from the Loam later on in the game as you can just discard the lands you get back for more draw.
Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar can be used to return Mystic Sanctuary to hand and itself can be a huge creature counting land in play and in graveyard!
Deprive and Cryptic Command are counterspells you can actually return the Mystic Sanctuary to hand.
You can use Strip Mine or Dust Bowl to destroy the Mystic Sanctuary and then use Life from the Loam to get it back to replay it.

Another way to get lots of lands into play is via Creeping Renaissance and Manabond. It's possible to just return all the land cards from your graveyard to your hand and put them all into play during your clean up step.
Creeping Renaissance can also be used to get back artifacts, enchantments or creatures so in this respect you can get value in other ways as well.

How to win?
I really wanted the deck to literally win via lands only. Sure the mass removal and card advantages are really what get you there but I wanted the actual way to win to be with lands.

Some land decks try to win with "gates" and Maze's End but there are only 11 gates and you need to be playing a 5 color deck in order to put them all in as they do have colored mana symbols from all the guilds. Therefore we have to go a bit deeper.

This deck looks to get infinite turns with a mixture of lands.
Magosi, the Waterveil comes into play untapped via Archelos.
You tap to skip a turn and get an eon counter.
Then you use Karn's Bastion to make another eon counter.
Nesting Grounds is used to move one of those eon counters onto another permanent.
If you don't have Deserted Temple then you'll need to wait another two turns (because you skip a turn), otherwise you can untap the Magosi, the Waterveil with it.
What happens is that for every additional turn you have you'll use Karn's Bastion to make another eon counter and then use Nesting Grounds to move a counter onto Magosi, the Waterveil.
Because Archelos makes Magosi, the Waterveil come into play untapped you don't actually need Deserted Temple other than looking at that first stage to mitigate having to wait some turns.

Field of the Dead can overwhelm opponents potentially with Zombie tokens.

Of note Reshape the Earth can get 10 lands and they even come into play untapped with Archelos.
You can literally win via getting at least Magosi, the Waterveil, Karn's Bastion, Nesting Grounds, Deserted Temple, Cabal Coffers, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, plus anything that provides u.
The Cabal Coffers with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth will give you enough mana to activate Karn's Bastion and Nesting Grounds.

Genesis Wave is also another way to put a massive amount of lands into play and in fact you are happy to keep putting it back on top with Mystic Sanctuary if the opportunity presents itself.

Utility lands
I've already mentioned lands for various uses but there are a toolbox of them to handle certain situations;
Boseiju, Who Shelters All makes your important instant or sorcery unable to be countered.
Glacial Chasm will protect your life total. With Life from the Loam you can afford to let the cumulative upkeep expire once it gets to a certain point and then just replay it.
Bojuka Bog for graveyard removal.
Holdout Settlement or Survivors' Encampment can be used to tap down Archelos so that it makes opponents permanents come into play tapped.
I already mentioned Strip Mine and Dust Bowl, but these can be used to take opponents off important lands.
Volrath's Stronghold might seem unusual with only 3 creatures in the deck, but actually putting World Shaper back on top just means that you constantly have a way to keep getting more lands into play. Also with all the board wipes eventually you'll not want to pay for any commander tax on Archelos so just letting him go to the graveyard to replay from hand is a good plan.
Arch of Orazca for some card draw.
Tolaria West to get any land you want.
Phyrexian Tower can be used to sacrifice World Shaper to guarantee the trigger.
Blast Zone as a catch all for permanents of a certain mana cost and remember with Life from the Loam you can keep getting it back.

There are some modal lands from Zendikar Rising in Sea Gate Restoration // Sea Gate, Reborn, Agadeem's Awakening // Agadeem, the Undercrypt, Hagra Mauling // Hagra Broodpit, Bala Ged Recovery // Bala Ged Sanctuary for a bit of utility.
Although they will not be effected by cards that put lands into play like Splendid Reclamation you can play them early in the game and then return them to your hand via the methods I mentioned already that you look to use with Mystic Sanctuary to use the spell portion if needed later on.

The land base has a lot of coming into play tapped lands as the design of them is to have this to balance out the fact that they are so good. With Archelos they of course come into play untapped and this just means that the deck functions that much better.

Nonland permanents
There are only 18 nonland permanents in the deck because you are not expected to keep nonland permanents around all that long with your own removal.
However I'll show you a lot of these are designed to be resilient in different ways.

Treasure Map, Search for Azcanta, Journey to Eternity and Conqueror's Galleon transform into the lands Treasure Cove, Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin, Atzal, Cave of Eternity and Conqueror's Foothold so become safe to your own removal.
Conqueror's Foothold is a backup plan to Mystic Sanctuary in that you can keep bringing back cards from your graveyard.
Obviously one of the biggest downsides of casting mass removal spells is that Archelos itself is not immune to these effects.
But between the lands Atzal, Cave of Eternity, Conqueror's Foothold, Volrath's Stronghold, Sanctum of Eternity you have a great way to get him back into play at a reduced rate to what commander tax would add up to later on in the game.

Sensei's Divining Top is also safe to your own removal by just putting it back on library.

Fluctuator makes the whole Life from the Loam and cycling lands much more feasible. There is always Academy Ruins to get it back if you want your engine setup again.

Manascape Refractor gets the abilities of all the lands in play. Because it comes into play untapped with Archelos there is a combo with Oboro, Palace in the Clouds and Cabal Coffers with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.
As long as you can make more than 4 with Manascape Refractor then you can return it to hand with Oboro, Palace in the Clouds ability and recast it again and get infinite mana.
You can also combine this with Arch of Orazca or Conqueror's Foothold to draw as much of your deck as you want.
You can also just use Oboro, Palace in the Clouds ability to return Manascape Refractor in the face of your own mass removal.

Patron of the Moon allows you to put lots of land cards into play and because they come into play untapped you can get infinite mana with one of the bounce lands in Simic Growth Chamber, Golgari Rot Farm, Dimir Aqueduct. Look to Field of the Dead for infinite Zombies in this case.

Exploration, Burgeoning, Manabond are to supplement the lands theme.



Archelos, Lagoon Mystic - Sanctuary of the Mystic

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Last edited by darrenhabib 3 years ago, edited 2 times in total.

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not-a-cube
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Post by not-a-cube » 3 years ago

Some of those combos seem very far fetched, but it'll probably be a blast trying to puzzle it together.

Would you include Freed from the Real as a way to control archelos' taps? You can tap down at the end of turn to slow down your opponents.
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WolfWhoWanders
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Post by WolfWhoWanders » 3 years ago

This is a really cool build, and more thought out combo wise than what I started with. My build is hoping to abuse Storm Cauldron with Patron of the Moon to spam Mystic Sanctuary, Field of the Dead triggers or whatever. It's "complete" in the sense that it's legal and playable atm, but much like my Jared deck still needs some attention to detail. It's also more dumbness with The Great Aurora. I wish I had a proper explanation for why I love that card so much... I have the list on moxfield, which I've been trying out for brainstorming purposes. I'll post it in the decks page in a minute, I think your deck is probably a lot wackier and more interesting, but I need to spend more time reading your write-up later
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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

not-a-cube wrote:
3 years ago
Some of those combos seem very far fetched, but it'll probably be a blast trying to puzzle it together.

Would you include Freed from the Real as a way to control archelos' taps? You can tap down at the end of turn to slow down your opponents.
The only problem with Freed from the Realis that the plan is to keep wiping the board of nonland permanents so you'll just end up removing it fairly quickly.

As you can probably tell I'm not really building around his stax ability to slow down opponents. A more spiky build would perhaps look at Winter Orb and Static Orb to really make it tough on opponents.
I do have Holdout Settlement and Survivors' Encampment to tap down Archelos, but at other times the plan is to attack. But even if I can't attack because blockers will kill him then this is fine, let opponents have a bit of a group hug feel in that they may get even some permanents untapped and he will be the last thing they'll aim removal at during the game.

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

WolfWhoWanders wrote:
3 years ago
This is a really cool build, and more thought out combo wise than what I started with. My build is hoping to abuse Storm Cauldron with Patron of the Moon to spam Mystic Sanctuary, Field of the Dead triggers or whatever. It's "complete" in the sense that it's legal and playable atm, but much like my Jared deck still needs some attention to detail. It's also more dumbness with The Great Aurora. I wish I had a proper explanation for why I love that card so much... I have the list on moxfield, which I've been trying out for brainstorming purposes. I'll post it in the decks page in a minute, I think your deck is probably a lot wackier and more interesting, but I need to spend more time reading your write-up later
Oooh I like Patron of the Moon. Actually that'll go infinite with a bounce land! It's going into the deck.

Actually I was researching on Sultai sorcery and instants for removal but I never thought about The Great Aurora. It is a catchall for permanents and of course in a lands heavy deck will put you ahead on opponents a lot of cases. Also opponents often hold onto cards in hand trying to assemble combos or what not so has this advantage as well.
It is better with token generating to go wider with permanents. Field of the Dead will come in handy there.
It is also going into the deck, I like the randomness of what lands you might get.

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Post by WolfWhoWanders » 3 years ago

Glad I could be of service. The Great Aurora can be a very, very disruptive card and is very easy for land decks to take more advantage of. In higher power metas, the decks running minimal lands and lots of fast mana will be ruing the day. In a deck with lots of destructive (rather than bounce) wipes it is particularly effective. If you find yourself reliably putting Patron of the Moon out and keeping him consider Storm Cauldron too. Goes infinite with Archelos and any 2 lands. May be a little too counterintuitive with all your wipes though. Another land that could make you a token and be untapped with Archelos is Khalni Garden. Spam this or Field of the Dead with Patron and bounce land/cauldron and draw your deck with The Great Aurora.
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WolfWhoWanders
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Post by WolfWhoWanders » 3 years ago

May I also recommend Vesuva which will come in untapped as anything with Archelos out. I've essentially decided I'm gonna mash this deck, my Uro deck, and my old, old Patron build and go to town. With the black board wipes this deck will be brutal. I question the Agadeem MDFC land a little in your build, but I suppose it still doesn't hurt. I expect by including things like Riftsweeper and maybe a couple other ETB creatures, perhaps Tatyova, Benthic Druid and that new serpent that does the same thing I'll get good value out of it. Off to the brewing space...
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DizzCompleat
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Post by DizzCompleat » 3 years ago

Pemmin's Aura for more Archelos control along with the previously mentioned Freed

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