“The fear simply assures me the ordeal is worth undertaking”
Art:Troyan, Gutsy Explorer
by Jesper Ejsing
Table of Contents
Todays Featured Commander Is:
Troyan is an awesome commander who is as Simic as they come! Focusing heavily on making mana and casting the biggest and baddest creatures we possibly can. This deck is filled to the brim with ramp and ways to make a ton of mana, and mostly cast 5 cost and up permanents and spells! This deck being Simic allows us to play counterspells, card draw and interaction with our opponents, Simic is a big move making us from just a traditionally big mana stompy style deck into a multi-dimensional and able to take on many challenges kind of deck, without further adieu lets get it!
The Deck:
Troyan, Gutsy Explorer Big Mana!
Buy This Deck!
Link to buy this deck: Troyan, Gutsy Explorer Big Mana Pauper EDH
Why Troyan, Gutsy Explorer?
The main reason we chose Troyan is that not only can they produce us mana but he is also a draw engine for our deck. Even though Troyan’s mana is only good for X or 5 cost spells we can easily ramp into 5 mana super quickly and pretty much use Troyan every turn, and if not we can always loot a card out which we will never complain about!
Deck Overview:
This section contains information about cards in the deck and how they function within the deck!
Creatures:
Since our deck is built around Troyan we have a bunch of creatures at 5 mana or above, but we also have some cards to ramp us up to that point with cards like Elvish Mystic
, Llanowar Elves
and Leaf Gilder
just to name a few! Some of our big cards that we can cast out early with Troyan can honestly really be unfair, a few cards like that are Fin-Clade Fugitives
, Greater Sandwurm
and Ulamog's Crusher
, Eldrazi Devastator
all of these cards can come down on average two to three turns early and we can easily turn the tide of the game by dropping down one of these monsters!
Instants:
We are a Simic deck so of course we have some counterspells like Dispel
, Negate
, Counterspell
and Logic Knot
. Logic Knot is a really cool card in this deck since we can get the Troyan buff which makes countering bigger spells really easy! Moment's Peace
and Pause for Reflection
are both great ways to stop combat damage for a turn, really good for aggressive decks or decks that buff up and pump their board for a turn!
Sorceries:
We are a ramp deck so of course we have some ramp in the form of Cultivate
, Kodama's Reach
and Nature's Lore
! Another important thing to consider is that we can use Troyan mana to cast a lot of these spells making them even easier to cast! Lórien Revealed
and Into the Fae Court
are both great spells with upside that we can easily cast with Troyan! Ponder
and Preordain
are both amazing and cheap draw spells that can be a great source of card advantage!
Artifacts:
One of the easiest creatures that we can cast is Thundersteel Colossus
this card can come down super early and with a crew cost of only 2 can be a great beatdown creature! The rest of our small artifact package is all mana rocks with absolute staples like Simic Signet
and Arcane Signet
.
Enchantments:
Wild Growth
, Utopia Sprawl
and Gift of Paradise
are great ways to make a ton of extra mana and ramp like crazy. In the case of Gift of Paradise we also get some life out of the deal! Lignify
is a great removal spell that can be super effective against commanders! Rancor
is a really cheap enchantment that keeps coming back and can be just a great way to get some extra damage in, or give a creature without trample, trample!
Land Base:
Blue and Green is the name of our game so of course we have Mystic Sanctuary
which is a great way to get a counterspell or one of our draw spells back and this can be done with relative ease! Thriving Grove
and Manor Gate
are both really good dual lands that are just great lands for us! Other than that our landbase mostly consists of some pretty basic Simic duals and basic lands! Since we are big mana we have gone with 35 lands since we can offset some of our mana production with our creature mana production!
Strengths of the Deck:
- Very easy to win in combat
- Ton of card draw, commander is a draw engine as well
- Ton of interaction
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- Weak to creature hate
- Deck is noticeably worse if we cant stick our commander
- Weak to control strategies, while we have control elements we can sometimes lose the grindy games
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Main Win Conditions:
We are as a simple as it comes and we are a straight up combat deck, we can really only win by turning our creatures sideways and swinging for the fences. With endgame creatures like Ulamog's Crusher and Eldrazi Devastator we can end games very quickly with only a few attacks!
Conclusion:
In conclusion Troyan is a really fun commander who is as simic as they come! This deck is a ton of fun to play and great for anyone who is looking for that big mana creature-based playstyle with the fun and spellcasting of blue! Hope you enjoyed this article dont forget you can always request a commander for PDH, CEDH,EDH and Budget EDH on our twitter or discord. Thanks for reading to the end!