Tatyova, Benthic Druid: We bounce a lot.

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vandertroll
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Post by vandertroll » 4 years ago

Tatyova, Benthic Druid is a Simic commander which rewards you for the most basic thing of Magic: Playing lands.

So, whenever a land enters the battlefield under our control we must (not may) draw a card. She is an incredible value engine, in one of the best color combinations of Commander, even though her mana cost (5 cmc) can be considered a little high.

I believe that in order to get the fullest from her abilities we don't have to play endless ramp spells or stuff the deck with 50 lands like Azusa, Lost but Seeking. Here's the decklist.
Tatyova, Benthic Druid

Commander (1):

Approximate Total Cost:

The plan of the deck is to use cards like Stasis, Sunder, Mana Breach and Storm Cauldron to mess with the opponents' board states while we use cards like Seedborn Muse, Exploration, Walking Atlas and Wayward Swordtooth in order to break parity and advance. There are several wincons: Use Retreat to Coralhelm with Cloudstone Curio and a creature like Walking Atlas or Llanowar Scout to draw your deck, if Tatyova is in play, and win with Labman or Jace. Alternatively you can bounce Sunscorched Desert to damage opponents or use Words of Wind for mass bounces or an arbitrarily big Hurricane.

I have found that you shouldn't play Tatyova immediately on turn 5, unless you have some form of protection or you are already far ahead with ramp spells. Our commander is rather best in few explosive turns than with a continuous board presence. Most of the time she draws removal like magnet and the counterspells are there to protect the winning pieces.

Ramp spells are useful both in early game for... ramp and later when Tatyova is online as cantrips. Splendid Reclamation and Crucible of Worlds protect from MLD and are used for value interactions with Trade Routes and Sunder discards. We also have some tutors to search for creatures that provide the extra land drops.

Cards I'm not sure that are useful yet or haven't appeared much during gameplay:
Ertai, Wizard Adept: is a cute interaction with Seedborn Muse but it also baits much removal

Kruphix, God of Horizons: helps store unused mana and powers game-winning Hurricane and Blue Sun's Zenith

Teferi, mage of Zhalfir: protects on the winning turn, still not sure if the mana investment is worth it.

Cards that I want to test or not currently own:
Amulet of Vigor: This is on the top of my list because it allows lands from Splendid Reclamation to come in untapped and also generates infinite mana with Simic Growth Chamber bounces. This will also make me want to put Scapeshift in the Deck.

Root Maze: Makes opponents sad and is a great combination with Amulet of Vigor

Winter Orb, Overburden: More stax might be good

Turnabout, High Tide, Argothian Elder, Quirion Ranger and friends. All these cards provide more mana and the ranger helps with Tatyova's ability.

Ghost Town, Strip Mine, Oboro, Palace in the Clouds and other utility lands are neat. I haven't got around in ordering them yet.
Last edited by vandertroll 4 years ago, edited 5 times in total.
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vandertroll
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Post by vandertroll » 4 years ago

Minor changes

Flooded Shoreline for Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir . Teferi is good but my creature count is low and I want to be able to let my opponents disrupt themselves in big turns. Hopefully my counterspells will let me push through my value turns.
Turnabout for Genesis Wave. Having an extra Rude Awakening effect so I can play more ramp spells and instants is more valuable for my game plan.
Compost for Verdant Confluence. I want to lower the cmc of my cards and the payoff of Confluence wasn't so impressive.

Throne of Eldraine Cards to consider

Castle Vantress seems to be a good mana sink for late game scrying.
I am very thrilled about Mystic Sanctuary. The deck has already so many ways to put the card back in my hand so I will be definately adding it with a Time Warp effect.
Frogify: I might add this for additional commander removal
The Magic Mirror: In theory I could be casting this for just UUU but I don't know if it can be as efficient as I'd like it to be.
Midnight Clock: Late game one sided Timetwister. I will give it a go if I can get this cheap.
Oko, Thief of Crowns: I like this card a lot but I don't think I can find room for him.
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Post by vandertroll » 4 years ago

Changes

Island for Mystic Sanctuary : Obvious upgrade
Compost for Amulet of Vigor : My meta changed and I managed to get a very important piece for my deck.
Archaeomancer for Walk the Aeons : Complete the combo with the Sanctuary
Forest for Root Maze: I might want to remove another card for the maze

I managed to get a couple of games with the deck. I played against a very tuned Chulane, Teller of tales and a Kalemne, disciple of Iroas . Suprisingly, I was mostly threatened by Kalemne's combat damage and some triggers by an Inferno Titan . I had received about 18 points of commander dmg (the chulane player mostly durdled trying to assemble his combo) when Flooded Shoreline proved to be an absolute all-star. I managed to bounce Kalemne several times while drawing cards from my commander. The problem was that i didn't have the ability to play extra lands until I drew an Exploration and a Llanowar Scout. After bouncing the commander and discarding extra lands from hand, I casted Splendid Reclamation and Turnabout untapping my lands. That was the final round since I managed to draw 10+ cards off my commander and I took some extra turns which helped me to draw my library and win with labman.

Second game was against a very mean Marisi,Breaker of the Coil, Torbran, thane of Red Fell and Korvold, Fae Cursed king. Unfortunately, I was too slow since I didn't draw any ramp and my opponents removed my Walking Atlas too early. I drew some cards off Tireless Tracker but it was too late. I underestimated the goading ability of Marisi and we all went to very low life totals. The Korvold player managed to kill the Marisi player with a huge Korvald but the Red player managed to win by burning us with Pyrohemia.
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Post by shermanido37 » 4 years ago

No Elvish Reclaimer? If it makes waves in Legacy it's probably good for you. Also surprised at your lack of Crop Rotation.

In fact I think you're missing out on a ton of important toolbox lands that go great with these two cards. Lands are something Green tutors for pretty easily, that's one of the reasons green land decks exist. Glacial Chasm and Maze of Ith and Halls of Mist are great defense, Thawing Glaciers is pretty awesome with Amulet of Vigor, obligatory Strip Mine and Wasteland with your Crucible, Dark Depths and Thespian's Stage are a good threat, Coral Atoll and Jungle Basin are great with Winter Orb and Stasis and Amulet, Blighted Cataract and Blighted Woodland are good, Waterlogged Grove is GREAT, Scavenger Grounds is great grave hate, Myriad Landscape is good, Fabled Passage is good.

Forsaken City is probably not good for you, but it's a combo with Stasis and Winter Orb so you might consider it. You can also bounce it enough to not care about the untap clause most of the time.
Speaking of which, Winter Orb.

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Post by vandertroll » 4 years ago

shermanido37 wrote:
4 years ago
No Elvish Reclaimer? If it makes waves in Legacy it's probably good for you. Also surprised at your lack of Crop Rotation.

In fact I think you're missing out on a ton of important toolbox lands that go great with these two cards. Lands are something Green tutors for pretty easily, that's one of the reasons green land decks exist. Glacial Chasm and Maze of Ith and Halls of Mist are great defense, Thawing Glaciers is pretty awesome with Amulet of Vigor, obligatory Strip Mine and Wasteland with your Crucible, Dark Depths and Thespian's Stage are a good threat, Coral Atoll and Jungle Basin are great with Winter Orb and Stasis and Amulet, Blighted Cataract and Blighted Woodland are good, Waterlogged Grove is GREAT, Scavenger Grounds is great grave hate, Myriad Landscape is good, Fabled Passage is good.

Forsaken City is probably not good for you, but it's a combo with Stasis and Winter Orb so you might consider it. You can also bounce it enough to not care about the untap clause most of the time.
Speaking of which, Winter Orb.
I totally missed Elvish Reclaimer. I'd definately give him a try.
As for the land toolbox, I am totally aware that I am missing many toolbox lands (and fetchlands). I intentionally left the land base for the end of the deck upgrades due to budget reasons. Some of the lands you suggest are rather cheap so I'll try to get them :). Also, I use Dark Depths and Thespian's Stage in other decks and I am a little bored by this synergy.
As for Winter Orb and Crop Rotation, they are on the mail.
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Post by rogerandover » 4 years ago

Skyshroud Ranger>Llanowar Scout.

I think your deck would fuction better if you switched to lower cmc ramp cards, like Nature's Lore and Rampant Growth. Though I understand your sentiment about a low landbase, I still think 33 might be too low.

I play Tatyova as a P(auper)DH, so only commons, and the main thing I want to do is play High Tide, and win from there. It enables some gross plays.

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Post by vandertroll » 4 years ago

[mention]rogerandover[/mention] I am willing to trade the instant ability of the Scout for the one additional mana vs the ranger. I could probably put both in the deck though.

Some ramp spells like Journey of Discovery can work as additional land drops late game giving me more triggers for the commander. The deck has an average CMC of 2.7 which is borderline for the amount of lands. Another thing that i've noticed playing the deck is that once I hit 7-8 land drops I can start reusing my lands with cards like Mana Breach and Trade Routes without getting too much of a mana disadvantage. If I was trying to do a lands.dec i would increase the number of lands.

High Tide is amazing but I have only played it in mono U decks. I guess I'll give it a go!
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Post by weltkrieg » 4 years ago

I don't think they are too particularly expensive, but I think two really good cards in this deck would be patron of the moon and meloku the clouded mirror. Synergy should be obvious.

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Post by vandertroll » 4 years ago

weltkrieg wrote:
4 years ago
I don't think they are too particularly expensive, but I think two really good cards in this deck would be patron of the moon and meloku the clouded mirror. Synergy should be obvious.
I like the abilities of those cards a lot, but I think that the CMC is too steep for my curve. What cards would you cut for them?
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Post by weltkrieg » 4 years ago

I find that interesting considering I count 33 lands and at least 13~14 sources of ramp, not including things that put lands onto the battlefield from your hand. I do think you could run a few more lands as they are sources of lifegain and card draw for you, not just mana. I do understand that you don't feel you need 50 or so, and I agree, but 33 is just too few in my opinion. I would aim for 39, I think.

2 cards that seem like auto cuts would be hurricane and turnabout.

To get best use out of either would really want mana doublers and you don't have one that I can see.

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Post by vandertroll » 4 years ago

Turnabout and Rude Awakening help me chain spells (usually ramp spells) or Splendid Reclamation which lead to drawing cards off Tatyova helping me get to my wincons. Hurricane is one of them - combined with Amulet of Vigor, a double mana land and cloudstone curio. I admit that i never got into casting it so I might swap it for Patron.
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Post by vandertroll » 4 years ago

Cards from New Theros set:

Dryad of the Ilysian Grove : Another land drop in the 3 cmc spot is sweet. Making all lands rainbow is just gravy.

Nylea's Intervention : Helps in finding Sunscorched Desert for the win or Mystic Sanctuary for chaining turns. It warrants testing but it hurts it being a sorcery.

Thassa's Intervention: Instant speed drawing X cards is always good in simic.

Whirlwind Denial : Very meta dependant
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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 4 years ago

:please:
vandertroll wrote:
4 years ago
Cards from New Theros set:

Dryad of the Ilysian Grove : Another land drop in the 3 cmc spot is sweet. Making all lands rainbow is just gravy.

Nylea's Intervention : Helps in finding Sunscorched Desert for the win or Mystic Sanctuary for chaining turns. It warrants testing but it hurts it being a sorcery.

Thassa's Intervention: Instant speed drawing X cards is always good in simic.

Whirlwind Denial : Very meta dependant
Thassa's Intervention only ever draws two cards, sorry.
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Post by shermanido37 » 4 years ago

Strongly recommend Meloku as was already mentioned. Great on defense, and can absolutely break a Earthcraft or Cryptolith Rite strategy (that works astoundingly well with Winter Orb). Also imagine this card with Sunder on the stack.
The Simic Titan could do wonders for you. Ramps you early game and is a threat that continues to ramp you late game. You'd need more lands, though.
Nissa, who shakes the world, can be great for your list since you can still do things with a low land count, and the new green 3drop absolutely adores her. Plus you have plenty of ways of bouncing the land creatures to your hand to make sure they won't die. Her ulti can be pretty good with your commander.
The blue Patron also seems sick.
Still don't see the Elvish Reclaimer I'd recommended in your list, as well as Winter Orb and Crop Rotation.
Strongly agree about increasing the land count, even to something like 36.

My least favorite cards in your list are Kruphix, Tamiyo, Negate, Trade Routes, Ertai, Stifle, Spoils of Victory, and several more.

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Post by vandertroll » 4 years ago

[mention]TheAmericanSpirit[/mention] : Indeed Thassa's intervention doesn't draw X! I might test it though since digging for X is still good

[mention]shermanido37[/mention] I didn't get to play a lot with land lady that's why I didn't write about changes or matches. Thanks for all the suggestions, and write all the cards you don't like :)
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Post by vandertroll » 4 years ago

Finally got some cards and did some changes on the deck:

Out In I had seriously underestimated how good Glacial Chasm is. I managed to win two games by locking out attacks to me until I manage to assemble the deck's engine. Nylea's Intervention helped me get the lands I needed at the right time. I didn't get the chance to test meloku with cryptolith rites or the new Nissa. Uyo helped me copy some ramp spells and Walk the Aeons.

I removed the boots because I realized I don't care if the commander dies, because of the land ramp etc. The same goes for the one piece of grave hate I had. Mystical tutor was moved in my Urza deck.

All in all the deck is smoother now, because I can stall the games more efficiently,
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Post by vandertroll » 4 years ago

Commander: Ikoria

Not many new things here. Fierce Guardianship will go in every blue deck ever and I might test Ominous Seas to see how fast I can put those counters. Tidal Barracuda would be interesting to try if it had flash itself. I think the blue leyline is better.
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