Giant Lady [EDH]

[Oversoul]

Back in 2019, I officially embarked on my journey of trying to build EDH decks helmed by each of the original 55 legendary creatures. Then in 2022, WotC released the glorious "Legends Retold." This gave us 20 brand new reimagined versions of a selection of the original 55. I was hooked immediately, and I've already built decks for 9 of the Legends Retold. Pretty cool, but it dramatically slowed the pace at which I can check off the original 55. In fact, it's July of 2023, and I hadn't been adding to my checklist at all. Until now, of course.

The Lady of the Mountain is a vanilla 5/5, but she's also a giant with glorious RKF art. It's been almost two years since I did a Giants Tribal deck. So let's do it again. That's about it. Not much to it. Giants are big. Giants are fun. This deck has lots of giants. Also, since my commander is explicitly "of the mountain" I've decided to also make this a Valakut deck. Just not a very good one. It's 2023, so this stupid deck will probably get trounced by a bunch of newfangled stuff. Oh well.

Commander:
1 The Lady of the Mountain

1 Abundance
1 Arid Mesa
1 Bala Ged Recovery
1 Beanstalk Giant
1 Beast Within
1 Blind-Spot Giant
1 Bloodshot Cyclops
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bonecrusher Giant
1 Borderland Behemoth
1 Boseiju, Who Endures
1 Calamity Bearer
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Chaos Warp
1 Command Tower
1 Conduit of Worlds
1 Countryside Crusher
1 Craw Giant
1 Crop Rotation
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Crush Underfoot
1 Dargo, the Shipwrecker
1 Defense of the Heart
1 Earthshaker Giant
1 Elemental Bond
1 Entish Restoration
1 Exploration
5 Forest
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Frost Giant
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Gamble
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Goblin War Drums
1 Gorm the Great
1 Greater Good
1 Hamletback Goliath
1 Harrow
1 Heartwood Giant
1 Hill Giant
1 Inferno Titan
1 Life from the Loam
1 Manabond
1 Misty Rainforest
10 Mountain
1 Mox Diamond
1 Ondu Giant
1 Outland Colossus
1 Raging River
1 Realmwalker
1 Regrowth
1 Roiling Regrowth
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Scapeshift
1 Seasons Past
1 Sol Ring
1 Splendid Reclamation
1 Squash
1 Stinkdrinker Daredevil
1 Stomping Ground
1 Stone Giant
1 Stoneshock Giant
1 Strip Mine
1 Sunder Shaman
1 Sunrise Sovereign
1 Survival of the Fittest
1 Sylvan Library
1 Sylvan Tutor
1 Taiga
1 Thud
1 Thundercloud Shaman
1 Tor Giant
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Two-Headed Giant of Foriys
1 Undermountain Adventurer
1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wasteland
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Worldly Tutor
1 Wrenn and Six
1 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth
1 Zendikar Resurgent
1 Zuran Orb

1 Sneak Attack

 

[Oversoul]

Running such bombs as Hill Giant and Tor Giant, I knew that there was some potential for me to have just undertuned this deck too much for it to be able to ever win a game. Well, the deck won its first game!

Thanks to Defense of the Heart, I got some big giants set up and had a board state that could actually pose a threat. The opponent after me in the turn order used Taunt from the Ramparts, and I got the worst of it, going down to 1 life from attacks that none of my creatures were allowed to block. I had lots of big giants, but was forced to play defensively, using Life from the Loam + Manabond + Tranquil Thicket to ensure that Glacial Chasm was always on the battlefield during my opponents' turns. My opponents eliminated each other, leaving me at 1 life against a single opponent with 100 life. He was able to successfully protect his Phyrexian Vindicator, which meant that I couldn't attack into him. He hoped to topdeck Generous Gift to get rid of my Glacial Chasm, but happened to shuffle it away after I channeled Boseiju, Who Endures. Elemental Bond, Realmwalker, Countryside Crusher, and Abundance all showed up to help me navigate which cards were being dredged away and which ones I'd get in my hand. This eventually secured Seasons Past.

I cast Thud, sacrificing my 50/50 Borderland Behemoth to hit my opponent directly, then sacrificed my 78/78 Hamletback Goliath to Bloodshot Cyclops for a second big hit. Despite copious lifegain, this was easily enough to kill my opponent and close the game out.

 

[Oversoul]

The way that this deck operates, Sneak Attack is merely decent here. If I'm going to be running a merely decent red enchantment, I might as well have some more fun with it. It's been an aspiration of mine for some time now to work Raging River into an EDH deck. Let's do this.

-1 Sneak Attack
+1 Raging River

 

[Oversoul]

Took this deck into a game where it was badly outclassed, but I still got to attack some people with giants, so there's that. Raging River was present, but no one actually threw blockers in front of my giants anyway, so perhaps the card didn't matter.

Three of us scooped because Tasha's Hideous Laughter kept getting copied. I don't think that the card itself is egregious for Magic, but I do think that it's stupid for the card to have been released in a commander-oriented set. It's wildly unfun in casual EDH, as it ends up pausing the game for three people to all count mana costs on their own cards and learn which cards they put in their decks will be the ones they'll never see again. There's no counterplay, no decision-making, nothing to make it interesting. Some decks might be relatively unaffected while others might effectively lose the game from the spell. Lame.

 

[Oversoul]

Kept a one-land hand and had a slow start. Just when I thought I was stabilizing, I was dispatched by triggers from Ayara, First of Locthwain when one of my opponents had a Shadowborn Apostle + Thrumming Stone engine go off. Killed two of us, but the Firesong and Sunspeaker player had enough life to survive, and hit back with Star of Extinction. Awesome decks.

 

[Oversoul]

Oops. I keep bringing this deck to tables where it's badly outclassed. Still, Raging River is fun. Also, I've taken to calling every Giant that I cast "the best giant in this deck."

 

[Oversoul]

I hadn't played this deck lately, so I tried again. It's just too rare for me to end up at a table where the low power level of this deck is appropriate. Probably scrapping this one for parts. I find myself wishing that I had a playgroup where this sort of deck made sense. I'd play with even more bad cards!