Halana & Sakashima - Fighting Clones and Tokens

[Ruiner]

Halana, Kessig Ranger & Sakashima of a Thousand Faces

Halana & Sakashima

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Commanders

1 Halana, Kessig Ranger

1 Sakashima of a Thousand Faces

Creatures

1 Ulvenwald Tracker

1 Birds of Paradise

1 Snapcaster Mage

1 Sakura-Tribe Elder

1 Ambush Viper

1 Nightshade Peddler

1 Needlethorn Drake

1 Phantasmal Image

1 Fynn, the Fangbearer

1 Augmenter Pugilist // Echoing Equation

1 Skullwinder

1 Hornet Nest

1 Farhaven Elf

1 Yavimaya Dryad

1 Wood Elves

1 Reclamation Sage

1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer // Nissa, Sage Animist

1 Eternal Witness

1 Winged Coatl

1 Venser, Shaper Savant

1 Faerie Artisans

1 Clever Impersonator

1 Temur Sabertooth

1 Bramble Sovereign

1 Thassa, Deep Dwelling

1 Toski, Bearer of Secrets

1 Tendershoot Dryad

1 Deadeye Navigator

1 Spawning Kraken

1 Vigor

1 Progenitor Mimic

1 Kogla, the Titan Ape

1 Hornet Queen

1 Kamahl, Heart of Krosa

Ramp (Non-Creature)

1 Sol Ring

1 Arcane Signet

1 Nature's Lore

1 Three Visits

1 Rampant Growth

Draw & Tutor (Non-Creature)

1 Ponder

1 Brainstorm

1 Regrowth

1 Fact or Fiction

1 Green Sun's Zenith

Removal & Counterspells (Non-Creature)

1 Nature's Claim

1 Beast Within

1 Krosan Grip

1 Song of the Dryads

1 Swan Song

1 Counterspell

1 Disallow

1 Force of Will

Misc. Instants & Sorceries

1 Double Major

1 Teferi's Time Twist

1 Heroic Intervention

1 Rite of Replication

Enchantments

1 Growing Rites of Itlimoc // Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun

1 Bounty of the Luxa

1 Opposition

Artifacts (Non-Ramp)

1 Soul-Guide Lantern

1 Blade of Selves

1 Conjurer's Closet

Lands

1 Command Tower

1 Tropical Island

1 Misty Rainforest

1 Breeding Pool

1 Waterlogged Grove

1 Rejuvenating Springs

1 Flooded Grove

12 Forest

11 Island

1 Glasspool Mimic // Glasspool Shore

1 Scavenger Grounds

1 Strip Mine

1 Tyrite Sanctum

1 Temple of the False God

1 Ancient Tomb

Approximate Total Cost:

Introduction to the deck

This deck aims to use cards that play off of Halana's ability with Sakashima as just a generally decent support option. Deathtouch has an obvious synergy with Halana so a healthy number of creatures with that ability are in the deck.

This deck usually wins by either generating a bunch of tokens, such as by using Tendershoot Dryad with some copy effects, or a few copies of some larger creatures like Kogla, the Titan Ape.

Fynn, the Fangbearer is a rather scary card in this deck due to the quantities of deathtouch creatures combined with the potential to have multiple copies of Fynn.

Faerie Artisans is a pretty great card with Halana, essentially allowing you to kill any enemy creature that comes into play if you have mana open and the creature has power equal to or greater than it's own toughness. In practice, this will generally stall out some opponents if you can keep some mana open. Faerie Artisans also have some great synergy with blink effects, allowing you to keep your tokens they make permanently.

Cards like Conjurer's Closet and Deadeye Navigator let you repeatedly have creatures come into play to utilize Halana's ability, which is especially useful with deathtouch creatures. There are a healthy amount of other ETB creatures that take advantage of these blink engines as well.

More Cards Under Consideration

None of these are in the deck yet but seem like they could potentially be included.

Doubling Season - I don't know if I actually have enough token generation stuff to completely take advantage of this. It is certainly a great card but I don't know if it would be totally worth it in this deck as it stands now. I may have to lean more into tokens as I'm not currently all-in on that direction. However, I may already have enough token stuff in the deck when combining them with blinking and cloning effects though.

Koma, Cosmos Serpent - This card is pretty amazing under normal circumstances but in this deck the ability to get multiples in play could make things get absurd quickly. I have a copy set aside but I haven't tried it yet.

[darrenhabib]

I would replace land ramp options with creature versions so that you can potentially get more value out of additional ETB or copy cards like Conjurer's Closet or Phantasmal Image.
Springbloom Druid, Wood Elves, Yavimaya Dryad or Elvish Rejuvenator over Harrow, Kodama's Reach, Cultivate.
Sakura-Tribe Elder is not ETB but you could get more value with Bramble Sovereign, so better than Rampant Growth.

You could play Fynn, the Fangbearer. He actually makes Hornet Queen and its insects potential lethal attacks (10 poison).

[Ruiner]

That's definitely something I need to do, they are pretty much all upside and the only person in my usual playgroup who runs Torpor Orb effects is me for the most part. Putting together the deck I was searching my spare cards and was shocked I could not find an extra Wood Elves not already in a deck. I've added the Yavimaya Dryad & Sakura-Tribe Elder to the list and dropped Cultivate & Kodama's reach.

Fynn is absolutely a perfect fit and will go in the deck as soon as I can get a copy. If Sakashima clones him that'll speed things up even further as well.

[Ruiner]

I got to play one game with the deck but had some atrocious luck, getting stuck on 2 lands for an absurd amount of time and by the time I finally got into the game it was far too late to have a chance. The hand I kept wasn't particularly risky and the ramp and land count is fine I think, just sometimes there are those random fluke games that happen.

Anyway, I have made a few changes to the list since then and have updated the original post to represent that.

Added Cards:

• 1 Opposition
• 1 Song of the Dryads
• 1 Disallow
• 1 Wood Elves
• 1 Kogla

Removed Cards:

• 1 Harrow
• 1 Earthcraft
• 1 Wordly Tutor
• 1 Chord of Calling
• 1 Kiora, the Crashing Wave

Tutors were the easiest cut at this point since I'm more or less in the stage of just trying to feel out the deck. They could easily be put back in at a later date but I'd rather just include some more creatures and see what works over the course of some games first. The less effective creatures can always be dropped and replaced by those two creature tutors that I've removed for now.

I think I needed some more interactive elements so that informed some of the cards added in at this point.

[Ruiner]

I got to play a few games with this deck tonight.

The first game I won by dropping Tendershoot Dryad, following it up on the next turn with both Sakashima of a Thousand Faces and Clever Impersonator each copying the Dryad. That quickly got out of control making 3 saprolings each player's upkeep that each get +6/+6. Someone tried to wipe the board but Heroic Intervention saved me and the game was over pretty quickly after that.

Halana, Kessig Ranger and Faerie Artisans was definitely as effective a combo as I figured it would be in one of the games.

Another game a player tried his new Tergrid, God of Fright // Tergrid's Lantern deck and it just got bad for all of us, nothing I could really do once it got going since I just could not seem to draw any answers. Someone else was playing a The Ur-Dragon deck that just fed the Tergrid player so much scary stuff. Some mass bounce or something like Ezuri's Predation may have helped if I had them but it was just rough all around.

Definitely looking forward to my pre-order of Kaldheim singles to show up to alter the deck a bit.

[Ruiner]

Some quick changes to the deck since my Kaldheim singles arrived:

Added Cards
+1 Fynn, the Fangbearer
+1 Toski, Bearer of Secrets
+1 Winged Coatl
+1 Tyrite Sanctum

Removed Cards
-1 Essence Flux
-1 Deep Forest Hermit
-1 Deranged Hermit
-1 Forest

Sad to see the squirrel makers go, maybe if I go way heavier into tokens they will come back. Fynn should be a scary card, especially if Sakashima copies it. I have to give the legendary squirrel a shot as well.

I also think Koma, Cosmos Serpent has a place here and have a copy but that might be tried once I have a decent amount of games with this list.

Verdant Force might not be super crazy but I kind of want to try that at some point too.

[Ruiner]

No changes to the deck lately but I had a pretty awesome set up last night in a game. My opponents were Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge, Gonti, Lord of Luxury, and Kozilek, the Great Distortion.

Kogla, the Titan Ape hit play. The following turn I was able to copy it with Sakashima of a Thousand Faces and then make an additional token copy with Bramble Sovereign. The next turn I drew Deadeye Navigator, soulbound it with the Sakashima Kogla, and was able to get a swam of Koglas going. I was able to decimate the Kozilek and Gonti player's utility artifacts, and had the ability to kill Jeleva every time she came in for 2 mana.

Ultimately I lost the game, a board wipe was played and I unfortunately had no counterspells, and then didn't recover quick enough, but it was a pretty wild board state to have for a few turns.

I'm definitely digging some of the goofy stuff this deck has done over the last few months.

[Ruiner]

Strixhaven has brought a number of new cards to consider for this deck and I've made a few adjustments.

Removed Cards
-1 Island
-1 Preordain - It's a good enough card but I needed to make some room to try new things.
-1 Hydroid Krasis - I've actually been a little disappointed in this card for this deck. It's an awful clone target and I can't blink it. It isn't terrible but I've had enough games where I've wished it was any other big beatstick.
-1 Stuffy Doll - I think this is a great card for Halana but my deck has a lot of little creatures and the Doll has been lackluster as a result. If I swing the deck more towards big creatures it will probably make its way back in.
-1 Terastodon - This card is awesome, but I wanted to try out Spawning Kraken and removing a higher cost card seemed to be the thing to try.

Added Cards
+1 Glasspool Mimic // Glasspool Shore - This seems totally worth swapping a basic Island for.
+1 Augmenter Pugilist // Echoing Equation - Both sides of this card seem to have awesome potential. The blue side is a potentially game winning mass shift. The creature side is an efficient beater that can hit for a good amount for cheap with Halana, and isn't a terrible thing for Sakashima to copy to threaten commander damage.
+1 Needlethorn Drake - It's nothing fancy but it is efficient and synergizes with Halana and/or Fynn as another deathtouch creature.
+1 Double Major - For such a low cost, I think this is going to put in some real work.
+1 Spawning Kraken - This puts in big tokens, which can remove some big creatures with Halana's ability. Multiple copies of this with Sakashima and other cards might spiral out of control pretty well also.

I have considered Quandrix Cultivator since another ETB land fetcher could be useful but at 4 mana the cost seems a bit steep.

I had a game this past weekend with this deck, before making the above changes, and wow does having multiple copies of Fynn, the Fangbearer put everyone into high alert. First time I've done that particular effect with this deck but it was certainly effective (I still lost the game ultimately but it was pretty awesome while it lasted).


On another note, I deleted the creature by creature breakdown in the initial post. I think just going over general themes would be a much better idea now that I've had this deck for a while and have had a good idea of how it is playing and the direction I want it to head in. I'm going to elaborate on some more general strategy stuff soon hopefully.