“One of Isaac’s sloths escaped from its enclosure again and it ended up hiding in my room. Those things are too smart for their own good.
Art:Lumbering Megasloth
by Daniel Romanovsky
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Lumbering Megasloth is sick of roaming around Appalachia and is coming to a Pauper EDH table near you. Get ready when it hits; it’s going to hit like a truck. Lumbering Megasloth is a very interesting and expensive commander, but don’t worry, we are never going to pay full price to get this beast out. We are a +1/+1 counters deck through and through focusing on putting on counters and proliferating them, while we are a little slow in the early-game we can absolutely dominate the late-game and be quite hard to stop. I have been having a blast with this one and just love the art and the whole vibe of this card. I am very excited to showcase this one today. Without further adieu, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Why Lumbering Megasloth?
Lumbering Megasloth may cost twelve mana, but we are never going to pay that much to get this absolute beast onto the field. We give our creatures a ton of counters, and we can reduce the cost an absolute ton. Combine that with being in mono-green, which allows us to ramp as well, and we can get this sloth out early. We also have a mini-Voltron package that allows us to commander damage kill if we need it, and one of my favorites is Brass Knuckles
, which gives double strike and hits like a train when given to the sloth. We also have Cloak of the Bat
, which makes the Megasloth very evasive and makes the commander’s damage kill quite easy.
Deck Overview:
This section contains information about cards in the deck and how they function within the deck! I also highlighted some of my favorite cards in the deck!
Creatures:
To start off, we have some +1/+1 counter payoffs in Longshot Squad
, Tuskguard Captain
and Duskshell Crawler
which help turn our buffed up creatures into keyword soup, and what’s good for the deck is that most of our creatures will be buffed up. This leans perfectly with Fairgrounds Trumpeter
, which is a great card that triggers nearly every turn and is just a great way to get another huge creature on the field. One of the ways we can guarantee that triggering every turn is Ivy Lane Denizen
, which buffs up every creature in our deck and works very similarly to Master Chef
, which we also run. Sporeback Troll
is a very important card for a deck as it allows us to fight back against a lot of the single-target removal within the format. We have some strong late-game cards in addition to our commander, like Undergrowth Scavenger
, Cytospawn Shambler
, and Ambitious Dragonborn
which all can get very out of hand once we have a big and buffed up board. To help with this, we have quite a few proliferation effects within the creature package which make all of our creatures better, like Adaptive Sporesinger
, Pollenbright Druid
and Urban Daggertooth
which are all amazing ways to make our crazy board even crazier.
Instants:
Accelerated Mutation
is one of the best cards we have towards a one-shot, and it is something we almost never cast until we have our commander out because five mana for +12/+12 is an awesome deal for us. We have a trio of very strong cards in Stony Strength
, Snakeskin Veil
, and Burst of Strength
, which provide counters for one mana and if we just cast our commander can untap them and have them ready to block, whether we use them for an untap or for counters these cards are all very cheap and strong. Duel for Dominance
is a very interesting fight card and provides a nice buff for us since we often control three or more creatures with differing power stats.
Sorceries:
Broken Bond
and Scale the Heights
are two very interesting pieces of ramp that help further our gameplan and benefit us heavily for cheap. Carnivorous Canopy
is a strong removal spell that we almost always use to take out a cheaper permanent because the destruction is nice but we are mostly looking for the proliferation effect. The same is true for Smell Fear
. The fighting and killing a creature is nice, but we get a ton of value out of the proliferating effect. We have Cultivate
, Kodama's Reach
, and Rampant Growth
, which are all strong and cheap ramp spells that allow us to get ahead on mana and cast the sloth as well as some of the bigger cards in our deck much easier. Soul's Might
is a card we typically save for our commander, but it is a great way for us to double the stats of our creature, which makes them even worse within combat.
Artifacts:
We are quite low on mana rocks since most of our mana ramp comes from spells, but we do have Bonder's Ornament
and Moss Diamond
; Diamond acts as a mana-rock that we can cast and use on a follow-up turn, more mana is nice but nothing special. Bonders are a little expensive, but more importantly, they provide supplemental card draws, which is something the deck needs. It’s also the same reason we are running Jalum Tome
. Spare Supplies
rounds out our supplemental card draw and, while a little slow, is quite strong. We also have a small Voltron package, mostly for our commander, that can allow us to deal big damage or, in some cases, even get a commander damage kill. Brass Knuckles is truly the gift that keeps on giving and is perfect for the deck; we also have Cloak of the Bat, which makes our commander much more evasive, which can be very strong and a good way to guarantee a hit.
Enchantments:
Since our creatures get decently big as the game goes on Ferocity
is a great way to punish opponents for blocking and make subsequent combats even worse for our opponents. Master Chef is arguably one of the most important cards in our deck since it buffs our commander and, more importantly, every creature that enters; this is like a speedrun of getting our commander out, and they can very easily cost GG at that point. Predatory Hunger
is another great source of counters, and just after a few turns on any creature, it can greatly cheapen our commander and make our creatures powerhouses within combat. We are not all offense in our enchantment package since we have Lignify
, which is an awesome way to deal with commanders who do a lot for our opponents or just a great way to reset a huge creature from our opponents.
Land Base:
Slippery Karst
and Tranquil Thicket
are great sources of supplemental card draw for the deck, we also have Tocasia's Dig Site
which allows us to surveil which can be a great way to get rid of a dead draw if we need to. Captivating Cave
and Cave of Temptation
are great additional sources of counters for the deck and help us cast the sloth quicker, which is always nice. I think this landbase works well for the deck, while some will likely question why only thirty-five lands since we never pay full price for our commander, we are able to get it out on the cheap, and we have a decent amount of ramp sources within the deck, in testing I have not had any issues with it.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We are very strong in combat once we do get our board established since we have a ton of buffed-up creatures that only get bigger; our commander is quite huge as well.
- We have a small Voltron package within the deck that allows us to hit hard, especially with our commander, and a commander damage kill is certainly possible within the deck.
- While we are a little slow in the early game, we can typically dominate the late game, and once we get rolling, we are quite hard to stop.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- We don’t have a lot of sources of supplemental card drawings throughout the deck.
- Beyond fighting effects we don’t have a ton of ways to kill opponents creatures/commanders.
- We can be a little slow at the beginning of the game, which opens us to some early-game damage against aggressive strategies.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Main Win Conditions:
There are no infinite combos or loops within the deck. We are a combat deck through and through and spend our early game putting as many counters as we possibly can onto our creatures so that we can ramp early and reduce the cost of Lumbering Megasloth, and have a big 8/8 attacker as early as possible. Between our buffed-up creatures, some payoffs like Longshot Squad and Tuskguard Captain, and Lumbering Megasloth themselves, we are quite strong at both attacking and blocking.
Conclusion:
Lumbering Megasloth is a tried and true beast of a commander; between all of the ramp from us being in mono-green and from all of the ways we have to put counters on, we can put this behemoth on the field quite early, luckily mono-green has a ton of counter support which allows us to have a strong deck and a commander we can fully build around, I hope you enjoyed this deck tech, if you have a list, id love to check it out! Thanks for reading to the end and for all of your support!