Mayael's Army; Journey into Nyx

As done last time, I am reviewing a set that has been out for a while to examine how well its fatties compliment my commander of choice; the stunning and talented Mayael of the Anima.

She's so wonderful...

LET'S GET STARTED.

Gluttonous Cyclops + Swarmborn Giant

Meh. There are much more powerful six drops than Gluttonous Cyclops, and Swarmborn Giant's drawback seems way too steep in a multiplayer format.

Goldenhide Ox + Humbler of Mortals

I really like the effects these guys offer, but they both have a particular drawback in both needing a lot of enchantments to be more than one shot effects. There are certainly worse drawbacks to have as there are any number of really good enchantments that I'd happily play in a Mayael deck (Guild Feud, Mayael's Aria, Greater Good, Mirari's Wake, etc) and there's a lot of beefy enchantment creatures from throughout the Theros block that pull double duty of being enchantments for Constellation triggers AND beef for Mayael to hit.
So to play with either of these isn't particularly hard, but will require building with them in mind, which as I have mentioned with other subthemes in other articles, is entirely possible. Also, if we look at Humbler of Mortals in a deck built to take advantage of it, it allows for a redundancy of "your dudes have trample" effects that are attached to creatures alongside of things like Nylea, Roughshod Mentor and Mosstodon; and in a singleton format, redundancy is king.

Quarry Colossus + Spawn of Thraxes

Like the above, these are really interesting creatures that need to be built around to take advantage of them. Unlike the above, I'm not sure it's worth it. In a three color deck, the ability for either of the these creatures to have their effects scale very highly, even in longer games in this format, aren't great. And to build a three-color deck to take the most out of these effects, you're going to have to downplay the other land types, and therefor your ability to reliably use three colors worth of effects. These creatures just aren't good enough to make the cut in a three-color deck.

Cyclops of Eternal Fury

Now this one I'm not quite sure about. Everything having haste is amazing, even more so when it's also a creature so it be a threat and utility. But then you see it has three toughness. Three toughness in the format of mega fatties bigger than all creation. I'd really say that running this guy is a meta call. I'd rather not be playing this if the threat of it dying in combat is such that you always have it on defense, but your meta might be different than mine. The power is there, especially because your creatures are so much cooler than most anyone else's, but it's not for everyone.

Hydra Broodmaster

Golly. This thing is hecka scary. I love going tall, but when Mayael is able to go wide as well, that's a rare treat. The amount of board presence this creature can make by itself, especially in a dedicated ramp deck (disclaimer: You should absolutely be running Boundless Realms in any green deck) is absurd. Very interesting card with very scary potential. And there's a sweet promo version you can get, so you should totally be aware of this.

Bearer of Heavens

Hnnnnn.... I really want to live the dream with this guy, but I'm not sure Mayael is the way to do it. At least not my Mayael. The best way to make this asymetrical is with Avacyn, but with her this guy is so much harder to kill. But then by having Avacyn out, you need some way of sacrificing this because it will never die from a board wipe or combat. But then you're building in all of these effects to take advantage of a combo.
By all means, combos are ubiquitous in EDH, and green has lots of creature tutoring to make the pieces easier to find, but it's not my particular playstyle. If you are interested however, I might want to invest in a few creatures that can survive the heavens falling in case your combo falls apart mid-sequence. Things like Phytotitan, Vorapede, Twilight Shepherd, Mossbridge Troll, or hiding your things under your own Angel of Serenity. And there are useful spells that can break the symmetry like Boros Charm and Wrap in Vigor that you might like to be aware of.
Happy board wiping!

Iroas

Praise be the Gods! I feel like this is fulfilling a similar role as Nylea in being a sometimes creature that makes blocking a pain in the butt. But where trample is better against lots of little blockers, Iroas is better against fewer big blockers. Being indestructible and also a 7 power creature at 4 mana is also insane, so i could easily see Iroas slotting up into most any Mayael build.

What has Journey into Nyx done for your Mayael deck?

Mayael's Army; Born of the Gods edition

Another set, more fatties to review.

Here's a bunch of Born of the Gods fatties and how they fare in Mayael the Anima commander decks.

Forgestoker Dragon

A fine creature, but not for everyone. This best comes into play if your deck doesn't have a lot of built in evasion (flyers, tramples, things that grant either), or if your opponents are playing against a lot of low toughness creatures and this guy becomes a differently-abled Shivan Hellkite. I think the flexibility makes it better off because one of the two options will almost always be viable. The biggest hit against this guy is that there are so VERY many good six drops for Mayael that there's probably something more proactive you could be running instead.

Archetype of Endurance

"Your win conditions have hexproof." Yes. Please. I love this guy, especially because Mayael decks will inevitably have so many ways of doing it at instant speed (Mayael herself, Elvish Piper, Quicksilver Amulet, etc). 8 mana is really expensive for a guy that's not caving skulls in or removal on a stick, but the effect is so powerful, I'd recommend trying it.

Nessian Wilds Ravager

There's one thing in particular I like to keep in mind when I'm putting cards in my EDH decks. One, how practical is this card. Especially in my Mayael deck, which demands a certain amount of slots in the deck to make Mayael a reliable asset, every fatty needs to be earning its space. To that end, I try to make sure that most of my fatties can either win the game on their own, or are an answer to an opponents plans. This guy, when considering it as a removal spell attached to a body, is a mostly worse Gruul Ragebeast. And you know what, that's fine.
Because of the singleton nature of the format, having built in redundancies in any deck is key in this format. And by playing this along Ragebeast gives you a minimum of two chances to draw into "kill your dude, I get a 6/6". Yes, I meant what I said. Carefully read Tribute's rules text. "As this creature enters the battlefield, an opponent of your choice may place six +1/+1 counters on it."  That means the player paying tribute doesn't have to be the same one you're going to fight creatures with. This makes for a wonderful bit of politics. You can choose a player whose disadvantaged at the moment, or has a grudge against the player you want to spite, and if they're feeling appropriately generous, they'll let you get your fight on. Your level of charisma may vary, results not a guarantee.

Karametra

A fine fatty, but perhaps not ideal for this deck. The thing is Mayael has a lot of ways of putting fatties int play that aren't casting them, and because of that we're getting less triggers than a deck built around Karametra's abilities (such as an EDH deck with her at the helm) would. Being big and hard to kill isn't enough in my eyes.

Cyclops of One-Eyed Pass

Limited chaffe. Use at your own risk.

Pheres-Band Raiders

Making dudes is sweet, but we have more efficient ways of doing so.

Thunder Brute

I really like haste, and I REALLY like the art, but I really don't think being big is enough in EDH (unless you're really big). Plus, Bull Cerodon does this and has the decency to block afterwards.

Xenagos

I freaking love this guy. Giving haste is a big deal. Making things enormous is a big deal. Both of these things tied onto body that is really hard to get rid of is a big deal. One of my favorite inclusions in this deck in recent years, and my commandering is all that much more better off because of it.

Those are my thoughts and feelings regarding the fatties of Born of the Gods. I'd love to know what you think! Happy commandering!

Mayael's Army

Have you heard about Commander (colloquially; Elder Dragon Highlander)?

It's a pretty cool format.

You pick a legendary creature, and then you build a deck around that creature. Seems simple enough, but the format has a couple of caveats that help distinguish it from most other preconstructed formats.
1. The decks have 100 cards. Not 100 minimum, not 100 maximum. 100
2. The decks are singleton, meaning no two cards other than basic lands can share a name.
3. All of the cards have to share your general's color identity, which is all of the colors in its casting cost or any color symbols in its textbox.
4. Each player starts with 40 life.

All of these details combine to make Commander a slower, haymaker driven format. A lot of players lock to the format because they only need one card as opposed to the usual four-ofs in most other formats, and the format is slow enough to allow players to reliably cast big splashy spells that are too expensive to be reliable in other formats.

ITS FAAAAAAAAAANTASTIC

I heard about the format shortly after I started playing Magic (around the time Shards of Alara came out), but due to my legendary laziness, I didn't get around to building my own deck until this past summer.

As the article title may clue you in, I chose a personal favorite of mine and one of the first legendary creatures I ever saw; Mayael the Anima.

Something that has endeared me to Mayael is that attacking with creatures is generally less practical in the format that going off with some one hit kill combos, so Mayael tends to be less reliant on pricey format staples than other strategies.

Nonetheless, the format isn't nearly as widespread as say, standard, so a fear of mine is that even with the singleton nature of the format, that playing the same strategy over and over will get old.
So I've started using an interesting deckbuilding exercise I first heard about on Commandercast.
It was in regards to a Zur the Enchanter deck, but the strategy translates well to what I'm doing.
Basically, Zur has a well-earned reputation as a "that guy" deck ("that guy" translating to "you dirty rotten motherf-") so to make things more interesting, the pilot would choose his enchantments at random before each game. He had a pile of assorted enchantments he favored, and he would pick a bunch of them at random and shuffled them into his deck before each game.
Some games he would "go off" and just destroy everyone, others he would play cutesy, inoffensive stuff like Pacifism. There was no way to tell!

So, as you can guess, replace "enchantments with converted mana cost 3 or less" with "creatures with power 5 or greater" and that';s basically what I started doing, and its been a blast so far.

Some times I plop in a limited workhorse like Archangel, other games something oppressive like Iona, Shield of Emeria would come out to play.

If you play EDH and you find yourself getting bored with your deck, I recommend you to try this strategy out!