With all the excitement about Battle for Zendikar's effect on Modern and Standard, I'm sure many a Commander/EDH fanatic have noticed just how many insane cards this set brings to the table.
Locus of Mana? More like Locus of Muscle
Since we last saw everybody's favourite Mono-Green commander in Worldwake, things have changed up for the fellow. Omnath, Locus of Rage was a spoiler that caught many players by surprise, and immediately various forums were buzzing with possibilities for him across various formats. As a Commander player, the first thing that came to my mind was the popular casual format. Now I've played Commander since Innistrad came out, and very rarely has a new card got me super excited (I can count the number of instances on my two hands). However, Omnath made the deck builder in me squeal with joy.
Definition of a Fun General
I think the prime reason that Omnath is such an effective and fun general in Commander is mostly because there's a bunch of ways to abuse him and have fun. He has two strong abilities that tie together, and in colours that can use them for all sorts of schemes. You can play nothing but basic lands and ramp spells just to keep pumping out Elementals. Or you can go straight tribal and run nothing but value creatures and lords. With my build, I decided to go a bit more combo-heavy, with the first cards that came to mind being Titania, Protector of Argoth and Scapeshift.
How it All Works
The deck is a combo deck, but due to the nature of your general, every building block is valuable in some way. Many of the utility creatures such as Skullmulcher, Titania, Protector of Argoth and Bane of Progress all happen to be elementals. So, while this is not by any means a tribal deck, there are certain synergies to be had with Incandescent Soulstoke. The deck simply plays by combining ramp spells such as Farseek and Skyshroud Claim with cards that can benefit greatly from the elementals. The deck usually wins by either slow rolling with the elemental tokens created by Omnath, or something explosive such as casting Boundless Realms while you have an Ogre Battledriver on the battlefield. Another all-star card is
In Conclusion
Like most R/G builds, I find this deck pretty self-explanatory to play. There aren't very many complicated and obscene combos aside from what's already been mentioned. The most important aspect is remembering what to use Worldly Tutor for at what point in the game. I wouldn't turn 1 tutor for Avenger of Zendikar, nor would I turn turn 9 tutor for Lotus Cobra. Just remember to have fun, and not to cast Jokulhaups if your opponents are the salty types. And if they are the salty type, merely show them this fine piece of advice:
Until next time, thanks for reading. Also note, at the time of writing the only spoiled card in Battle for Zendikar of interest besides my commander was the land in my colours. I'm sure there will be more cards to synergize with Omnath but they are not included in this article simply due to me lacking knowledge of their existence.
