Bryan’s Brews – Elementals
Welcome back to another Bryan’s Brews. Today we are going to be talking about Omnath. I am quite certain no one has heard enough about Omnath and how strong it is. So, this week, we are going to drive home the point!
Obviously I’m joking and everyone knows how good Omnath is. This is a card that I wanted to play in Pioneer for a while but, unfortunately, it felt like the deck needed quite a bit of help.
With the printing of Nissa, Resurgent Animist, I believe the deck has found one of the cards it was missing. Another value card to keep the train rolling.
I will preface this by saying this is a midrange deck and not one of those Omnath to Light type decks. Yes, those decks are good and awesome but, I wanted to play midrange. It’s the style that suits me best.
With that said, let’s take a look at one of the few iterations of this deck:
Let’s start from the beginning.
Let me preface this all first by saying, YOUR BASIC LAND ART MATTERS!
I wanted to play Omnath, Locus of Creation. This meant that I needed to find a shell that I thought was good enough for the card. I looked online and found a few decks that looked close but they looked a little… off.
I don’t really know what felt off about them other than they just didn’t play the way I liked. So, I made my changes and actually enjoyed where the deck landed.
First and foremost, I played this deck for roughly 3 weeks at the shop and made changes to the deck every time. I believe that with this final iteration, I am the most happy with how the deck played but I will continue to try new things in the future.
I cut Fables and added Voice of Resurgence. Sort of weird to cut the card that makes Voice so much better but I thought that the value from Fable is sort of unneeded with so many Legendary creatures. Risen Reef and Nissa add plenty of 3 mana value and also allow you to dig a bit deeper.
Nissa and Voice each have 3 copies in the deck but I could totally see going to 2 Nissa and 4 Voice. I just always wanted to have Nissa while testing the deck.
I also cut back to a single copy of Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines. This card is an absolute bomb and I would love to play 2 copies but I was struggling to find room. If I can ever figure out what to cut for the second copy, I will slam it in.
(I learned the hard way but it is very vital for everyone to understand the Elesh Norn interactions. With Landfall, it triggers the ability again not the effect. With Elesh Norn + Omnath, Locus of Creation, 1 land drop = +4 life and 4 mana. Not +8 life. This is also true for Nissa and Elesh Norn as Omnath and Nissa both have the Landfall ability)
I will say that if you wanted to try Kennrith, the Returned King in that spot, I could see an argument for it. The card provides the value you want out of your 5 mana creature.
From there, the only things that I changed from the “stock” copies of the deck is that I removed Mystical Dispute from the board for 2 copies of Chandra, Awakened Inferno. I’ll concede Jegantha in the control match for better spells. Also, I am not trying to pick a counter war fight with UW. Usually it doesn’t end well. I will stick with 2 Dovin’s Veto and be happy with that for now.
I had initially cut the Escape to the Wilds as well but that card provides too much value in the grindy matches. I feel like it is too necessary to leave out of the deck.
With all of that said, I think we should discuss some of the decks that I played against and go over what I thought felt good and bad.
Over the course of a few weeks, I played against a few different types of decks and honestly, I didn’t feel super unfavored in a lot of them.
The stand out decks were:
Rakdos midrange
Rakdos sacrifice
Mono Red Fires
Creativity Combo
Boros Convoke
Sorin Ghalta Combo
UW Control
Both Rakdos decks were a joke. I played Midrange twice and Sacrifice once. I didn’t sideboard a single card and never dropped a game. Elementals produce too much value for them to keep up with and every threat of ours is a built in 2 for 1 against their 1 for 1 removal.
Mono Red Fires actually felt like a decent match up. I ended up losing to this but I never found the second removal spell for their top end threats after answering the fires. I don’t believe this is a slam dunk match up but it did not feel like it was completely unwinnable.
Creativity did not feel good at all. I ended up beating them but it felt like I was playing from behind for most of the match. I never felt completely out of the game but it never felt like I was completely in control of what was happening. A couple of lucky draws by me and a misplay that my opponent and I discussed afterwards allowed me to win. This is a match where I was missing having the extra counterspells in my sideboard.
Boros Convoke felt like a decent match. I ended up losing this one but Omnath REALLY pulls this one together and helps a lot. Also, our creatures having bigger bodies than our opponents creatures for most of the match and having Radiant Flames was very important.
UW Control match actually seemed really good post board with the Chandras. I ended up losing this one but I feel like this was because I removed the Escape to the Wilds from my deck that week and only had 4 Growth Spirals. While good, I was top decking too many lands and not enough threats/answers. This didn’t feel like a bad match up but it wasn’t a favorable one either. Maybe just a 50/50?
Sorin Ghalta combo also didn’t seem like an unwinnable match either.I did end up losing this one but it felt close. Very similar to the Mono Red Fires deck, I just needed to have the second piece of removal and I think I would have won. Not having the exact removal spell when I needed it seemed to have foiled my plans again.
The big takeaway that I got from these past few weeks was that I think this deck is incredibly good against other midrange decks, pretty strong against aggro as long as you can stave off the initial “spew my hand onto the board, can you deal with it?” and had some play against control decks.
This deck accrews card advantage so easily and quickly that the one for one removal just doesn’t seem all that good against us. The early sweepers are decent against us but we can rebuild quickly. The late game sweepers are punishing.
The life gain, mana, and damage from Omnath is super important and the 3 color Omnath provides us with the ability to get our creatures bigger and draw us out of some poor board states.
Voice offers us up to 2 triggers with Risen Reef. One on entry and one when it dies. And Nissa, although doesn’t trigger Risen Reef, helps find the next elemental for you. Along with the fetch lands and Risen Reefs, Nissa is fairly easy to enable. Providing loads of mana each turn helps pump out your entire hand.
I had tons of fun with this deck and I am now considering this as being one of my staple Pioneer decks. It was super fun to pilot but it was super difficult to play. The spells are easy to cast but once this deck gets going, There are SO MANY TRIGGERS!. Add in Elesh Norn and the trigger tracking becomes the most difficult thing to do.
I have decided to try a slightly different build moving forward. I have been finding that against the blue decks, this deck struggles to keep up. My plan moving forward is to remove (3) Oath of Nissa, (1) Nissa, Resurgent Animist, (1) Boseiju, Who Endures, and add (1) Voice of Resurgence and (3) Fable of the Mirror Breaker, and (1) Plains.
I would not fault anyone for adding the 4th Fable over the 4th Voice either. I just felt like having the extra threat was important enough for me to add.
It should also be noted that the Voices make the Rest In Peace out of the board a little more Awkward but I think the tradeoff is still worth it in the matches that you need Rest In Peace.
I am also considering moving back to 2 Mystical Disputes instead of the 2 Chandras in the board. Voice gives enough pressure against control decks that I no longer believe that Chandra is required. I have also been feeling like I’ve been missing those Disputes enough that I want to have them back.
With all of this said, this is the 5th iteration of this deck for me. Proving that you can be successful with the deck in its many different versions. Some are a little more aggressive and some are more “combo” oriented. You should figure out which version you like the most and learn the deck.
For anyone looking to play a fun deck and have some relatively fun games or maybe just goldfish against Rakdos, I would highly recommend picking this deck up. It is not the cheapest deck so maybe test it first before buying in.
Until next time, Stay Brewtiful!
