Thelon and his Thallids (EDH / Commander)

"The sight of my thallids still thriving is a bittersweet welcome to this cold waste."

Ten years or more in the making, before commander was even being considered as a well-known gametype I had decided to pick up the Fun With Fungus precon because of the excellent color combination and was immediately enamored with Thelon of Havenwood and the power he gave to my thallids in play. I only ever had one in the deck but I'd always wished I could always have him at my immediate disposal all the time, readily available throughout a game in some sort of... zone... from where he could lead the deck... The rest is obviously history, as this is now an accurate and current representation of the commander deck i've actually built around spore counters, saproling generation and a little bit of card advantage, and some nifty spells to cover the very vulnerable and squishy fungus that grow said spore counters. The original Thelon of Havenwood card is kept in the box with the sideboard (in case he's in play and gets shuffled in or something) and I picked up a foil version I keep in a thick sleeve to keep from warping and to use kind of like an oversized card just for looks.

The deck has changed ever so slightly as new fungi and useful saproling cards are printed, and I've included my sideboard to flesh out the toolbox just a little bit. I try my best to be a fun opponent over beating my competition into submission and with this deck i accomplish that to the best of my abilities. There are win conditions and a couple of infinite combos (including one I can't stop once it starts without a sacrifice outlet to make it stop, forcing the game to end in a draw!) based around some pretty awful mechanics that end up synergising really well. I've had fun collecting these cards, and I look forward to pruning through more to maybe add to it as the years continue to go by.

Playing Thallid turn one and Thelon of Havenwood turn two, then attacking or blocking with a 2/2 thallid is my favorite way to begin any game with this deck, no matter what. Fecundity + Saproling Cluster + Utopia Mycon will allow you to draw into Parallel Lives or Doubling Season or in conjunction with Slimefoot, the Stowaway you can make your opponents lose a whole lot of life. Once you play either doubling season or parallel lives, you've got infinite mana and infinite saprolings now! Here's how; continue triggering the draw effect to pick up your library as your new hand once you can double your output, you can cast Primal Command + Recollect to use the cards in your library as fuel, cyclically forever now, creating an infinite garden of saprolings. Get Vitaspore Thallid into play to give them all haste. If you manage to get Doubling Season + Parallel Lives + Slimefoot, the Stowaway and Utopia Mycon out all at the same time, you can use slimefoot to his maximum potential and drain everyone's life to 0. Also, having Life and Limb + Sporemound on the field and playing a land (or creating a saproling which is also a forest now) will cause a runaway forced trigger effect, creating an infinite army of saproling forests forever causing a forced draw, or until you sacrifice the creature or destroy the enchantment leaving you with an army, your choice in number! Perhaps even in conjunction with Slimefoot and a thallid that lets you sacrifice all the saprolings, you can just kill them as fast as they're made for another win con with Slimefoot. You can use Thallid Soothsayer or Grim Backwoods or maybe even Krosan Grip to kill the Sporemound safely so no one else counterspells their way into a draw. Another cool one-use combo that may be obvious is Undergrowth Scavenger and Corpsejack Menace, which is obviously even more potent with doubling season. I've used this fairly effectively after being hit with Traumatize. With enough green mana, Fungal Bloom + Spore Flower can be used to fog every turn if need be, preventing combat damage to keep you alive long enough to draw or maybe even win when it's just down to two players and the other is just being really aggressive with big stompies. As a final note, a combo many may not realize is technically worded to work with each other are Mindbender Spores and Sporogenesis, which isn't great but it can end up keeping some scary things tapped for a turn or two, since they both produce "fungus" counters on permanents. Something I figured out comparing mechanics.

It's a fairly well-oiled machine and I really enjoy playing it, however it is not a very powerful deck. The parts are all there, and if any of the pieces like Recollect or Primal Command are exiled by an opponent, the combo is broken. Losing Vitaspore Thallid to exile is also dangerous as it prevents you from attacking quickly after you've created saprolings. Essentially, let your resources build up until you have ample actions or responses, and then harvest them. With this deck it's usually better to wait for others to begin doing things before you do. It's much easier to focus down one player at a time in a multiplayer match than try to fight everyone at once, let the others wear themselves down while you cultivate your board for a late game pull through. The longer the match goes on, the more things you'll be able to do. Try not to go for the early damage all the time, as aggravating someone early on may result in you getting killed off sooner than the others. Most importantly, sit back and enjoy the game with your friends, it's commander so you're going to be there for a while, especially if you play this deck. It's very resilient -- much like the thallids -- and is in it for the long haul, not just as an easy way to make quick food anymore.

x sickfreed