Then I looked harder and I realized that WotC done goofed right up.
So far, basically every recursion spell that can return multiple cards of any type (most importantly, instants and sorceries) self-exiles. Presumably this is to prevent stack-based combos where you cycle extra turns or whatever, along with other recursion spells to keep doing the same thing over and over.
Shigeki does not do that.
Shigeki can get back basically anything, at instant-speed, in potentially large quantities, without self-exiling. Which means you can easily recur another recursion spell with him, then use that recursion spell to recur him, and thusly recur other cards as often as you have the mana to do so. Your entire deck is buyback-able. On top of that, Shigeki's ability isn't even a spell, so most counterspells are useless against the engine, especially when you have redundant recursion spells to get him back.
If this was in blue it'd be straight busted. You could win with ramp and time magic easily while protecting yourself with endless counterspells. Fortunately for those of us who enjoy fun instead of misery, he's in mono-green.
This poses some interesting challenges. Mono-green is possibly the most creature-focused color identity in the format, and recurring creatures is fairly unexciting as they don't tend to expend their value and go to the graveyard to be recurred as readily as instants and sorceries. Almost all the top green commanders focus on creatures. Building a deck with shigeki is going to require thinking a little outside the mono-green box.
The main difficulty is that green isn't commonly used as a control color, due to its lack of control spells. Buff spells, ramp spells, those are green's best instants and sorceries. Artifact and enchantment removal, sure, but that can only get you so far. So how do you overcome the weakness to creatures without relying on creatures yourself?
Turbofog, my boy. Turbofog.
Let them craterhoof us, let them make infinite tokens with kiki-jiki, let them swarm us with goblins or vampires or elves. We will smile, play a junk common, and render all their efforts irrelevant.
And then eventually we'll blow it all up with o-stone or whatever.
So that's the heart of the deck - ramp with Shigeki while using control tools to stay alive via removal and fog, and when you start to run low on gas, use Shigeki to recur all your answers, and another recursion spell to recur shigeki.
How do you win? There's a couple ways. The first, most reliable way, is to use Early Harvest to generate infinite mana, which shegeki converts into infinite recursion, which enables you to blow up all their lands with Rootgrapple or whatever. Helix Pinnacle is in there for funsies. Planeswalker ults are also an option - Shigeki himself can't recur them, but other recursion can if he dumps them into the gy, and fogs obviously help protect them until they get into range. Lair of the hydra can get very large and 1-shot or 2-shot people. Arachnogensis might get there, especially if your opponent is a moron. You can even use it when attacking to protect them. Finally, if all else fails, you can just slowly grind them out of resources, the same way you do with early harvest except not infinite. You just get a bunch of mana and keep recurring beast within a hundred times until all their permanents are 3/3 beasts which you can fog or blow up with o-stone.
I do anticipate some weaknesses. We don't have ways to solve every combo as our stack interaction is pretty minimal. Things like a high-X Torment of Hailfire. for example, is gonna be a problem. But, y'know, it's hard to get to a high-X when your coffers keeps getting blown up, along with your gauntlet of power and doubling cube. So we'll see. It's a fun little puzzle, and definitely a unique new way to play mono-green. I don't think any commander has enabled a deck remotely like this, at least not in this CI, so I'm really excited to try it out.
Okay, the list.
Decklist
Approximate Total Cost:
