Golos Pros Bloom (EDH / Commander)

This list tries to port the infamous Mirage-Tempest era standard deck Pros Bloom, https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Prosperous_Bloom, to Commander. As per that link, the original deck "would remove most of its hand to generate large amounts of mana with Cadaverous Bloom, feed that into a Prosperity, sacrifice its lands to Squandered Resources, and eventually win with a giant Drain Life." The most subtle, yet critical, part of the equation was Natural Balance, which along with Squandered Resources secretly made Pros Bloom a "lands matter" deck by breaking the symmetry on Natural Balance to allow the pilot to fetch enough lands to keep sacrificing them to Squandered Resources. Natural Balance was perfect because the lands it fetches ETB untapped, which makes 2 mana for every land in conjunction with Squandered Resources.

But Natural Balance relies on a deck full of basic lands, which tends to be tricky in 3-color + commander decks. Furthermore, Natural Balance is a real one-off; they don't make 'em like they used to in Mirage. So I sadly set aside my dream of playing Natural Balance and decided to explore my options for recurring land from the yard to abuse Squandered Resources instead.

After a bit of testing, I decided I didn't like how Splendid Reclamation, World Shaper, and Scapeshift make lands enter tapped; I've solved that problem in the past with Trinket Mage + Amulet of Vigor, but that felt unwieldy here. I eventually settled on an "eggs" style strategy with Second Sunrise and Faith's Reward because the permanents those spells recur enter untapped, and that's when the build took off. Dipping into white dictated either 4c or 5c, but I had always felt that Past in Flames would be a necessary piece of redundancy. So 5c it would have to be. After a brief tussle between Kenrith, the Returned King and Golos, Tireless Pilgrim, Golos fittingly emerged as the commander of what could perhaps be most broadly characterized as a "lands matter" deck.

The last piece of the puzzle to be printed turned out to be Dryad of the Ilysian Grove, because that, along with Prismatic Omen, provided the necessary redundancy for focusing on an "all basic land types matters" subtheme. That opened the door to sacrificing and recurring Mystic Sanctuary and Witch's Cottage to make an infinite loop once a certain number of lands are in play (the exact number depends on whether things like Cabal Coffers and Lake of the Dead are involved, usually alone with Cascading Cataracts to fix the black mana). But usually about 6-7 land will be on the field when the loop begins. It goes something like this:

With Squandered Resources, Golos, and Dryad of the Ilysian Grove/Prismatic Omen on the Field, along with Mystic Sanctuary/fetch land for island (or Witch's Cottage/fetch for swamp to grab Eternal Witness/Greenwarden of Murasa) in hand or on the field, and Second Sunrise/Faith's Reward in hand or in yard, tap all lands for mana, then sac those lands to Squandered Resources to float a bunch of mana to cast Second Sunrise/Faith's Reward, which recurs Mystic Sanctuary, which triggers because of Dryad/Omen, targeting Sunrise/Reward to put in on top of the library, then use Golos to cast Sunrise/Reward off the top, rinse and repeat until you hit Valkut or make enough mana to draw the table out with Prosperity/Cadaverous Bloom after casting Laboratory Maniac/Jace, Weilder of Mysteries. Along the way you are ramping, mostly by playing extra lands each turn via Exploration effects, and filling the graveyard; Entomb/Intuition for Life from the Loam is a common tactic. Echo of Eons is the deck's fail-safe switch if the combo fizzles for any reason and also serves as graveyard disruption; it's almost always cast for its flashback cost. Echo is often in Intuition packages along with things like Faithless Looting, Eternal Witness, Witch's Cottage, Momentary Blink (targeting Golos or E-Wit usually) and Unburial Rites.

Also note that Sylvan Safekeeper + Lotus Cobra can stand in for Squandered Resources and still execute the loop. Lotus Cobra is the BOMB in this deck. The removal suite features efficient cards, like Oblation and Arcane Denial, that allow opponents to draw cards a la Prosperity effects, allowing for the absolute ABUSE of Smothering Tithe in this deck. Smothering Tithe ends up being another way to replace/supplement the Pros Bloom engine.

This deck can also make use of Lab Man/Jace with the silly The Gitrog Monster/Dakmor Salvage/Skirge Familar combo to draw our deck and make black mana equal to the number of cards we draw. Those cards are all solid-to-good on their own in this deck, so including this alt-win combo is a no-brainer; Skirge Familiar is like Cadaverous Bloom-lite, GitFrog allows for extra land drops and pairs insanely with Squandered Resources, and Salvage provides an extra dredge engine and likes to be sacrificed. Unburial Rites is often the means to the end of getting the five-drops in play.

Finally, ordinarily janky cards like Orcish Lumberjack and Lake of the Dead become absolute powerhouses in a 5c deck that mitigates their drawbacks with both Dryad/Omen and Crucible of Worlds/Ramunap Excavator/Sunrise/Reward.

So other than effectively replacing Natural Balance with Second Sunrise/Faith's Reward, and relying on win cons other than Drain Life, the deck's best games involve Prosperity, Cadaverous Bloom, and Squandered Resources. Pros Bloom indeed!