Nylea, Keen-Eyed

The last in the colour cycle for the Theros mono-coloured God cycle: the Keen-Eyed God of the Hunt. We’re not trying for any combos here, just playing ramp into huge threats! Let’s take a look at the decklist and get started.

Synergies

Garruk, Wildspeaker + Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx: Garruk and any land really, but in a deck heavy on devotion, Nykthos is a ton of mana. Of course, Garruk can also create bodies and finish games with his Overrun effect.

Urza’s Tower + Urza’s Power Plant + Urza’s Mine: It’s not hard to play Tron in this deck. There are a number of land tutors in the deck and World Breaker appreciates the colourless mana for recursion.

Dark Depths + Thespian Stage: To those who don’t know how to make a 20/20 Flying Indestructible Marit Lage, let’s go through it. Copy Dark Depths with Thespian Stage, send Dark Depths to the graveyard due to the Legendary rule, and now Thespian stage is a Dark Depths with no ice counters on it triggering it to bring in the Marit Lage.

Tooth and Nail + Surrak, Caller of the Hunt: Tooth and Nail is probably the best finisher for green decks. With Surrak as one of the targets as long as the other creature has at least 3 power you can grant Haste with the Ferocious trigger. The Haste is a lot scarier when you give it to something like Kozilek, Butcher of Truth the Annihilator becomes pretty deadly.

Avenger of Zendikar + Craterhoof Behemoth: Generally, just a ton of power to run over your opponents. The Craterhoof Behemoth boost is huge with a minimum +X/+X where X is 2 + the number of lands you have (Avenger, Craterhoof, and all the Plant tokens).

Utility Creatures

Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma: Another card along with our Commander to discount our creatures. Although the discount is limited to creatures with power 4 or greater, that will cover most of the threats we have. The added combat trigger for trample is a great bonus!

Ulvenwald Hydra: Utility land search, check. Ramp, check. Beefy creature, check! This card is a ton of value and it can curve right in after casting your Commander. It works with Goreclaw if you have 4 lands as the */* power is checked in every zone.

Bane of Progress: With minimal artifacts and enchantments in the deck and Nylea being Indestructible, this card is significantly more devastating to your opponents.

World Breaker/ Acidic Slime/ Reclamation Sage: These three are purely for spot removal of opposing targets, each a stronger threat as the converted mana cost increases. If there’s something effective green can do besides ramp, it’s removing artifacts and enchantments.

Biggest Threats

Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger: This card is here to supplement some of the weaknesses of mono-coloured decks colourless cards. Ulamog is a bit of overkill in this area, exiling 2 permanents as a cast trigger as well as 20 cards from any defending players deck is incredibly disrupting. It’s not the easiest card to cast, but in a ramp deck with creature discounts, it’s perfectly viable.

Kozilek, Butcher of Truth: Aside from having card draw, Kozilek includes the incredibly deadly mechanic of Annihilator. It is also one of the Eldrazi lords that will let you shuffle your graveyard back into your deck. While you’re not actively looking to defend against mill decks, it is a great creature to have and use nonetheless.

Titania, Protector of Argoth: She’s pretty much the only reason to run fetchlands in this deck. Possibly ramping up and going wide with the presence of 5/3 elementals, they are a quickly generated hard-hitting army.

Support

Praetor’s Counsel: Full recursion of your graveyard to your hand as well as an unlimited hand size for the rest of the game. This 8 mana sorcery is well worth the cost for its recovery value.

Rishkar’s Expertise: One of the expertise series of cards that allow you to play another card with less converted mana cost. This one, in particular, will draw equal to your highest power, which in green tends to be a decent amount. Even if you are empty-handed, you may be able to dig for something from it with 5 CMC or less to cast.

Nissa, Vastwood Seer/ Nissa, Vital Force/ Nissa, Who Shakes the World: All of the Nissas here are incredible, bringing card advantage, draw, bodies, and even doubling mana. The value of any one of them is incredibly high, and if you really felt like it, you could switch into playing Nissa, Vastwood Seer as your Commander.

Summary

Nylea is another solid option to add to the pool of green Commander. It has significantly better abilities as a Commander than its God of the Hunt version with both a discount and potential card advantage. If big green stompy decks are your thing, then let Nylea help you out.