Kamahl, Fistin' Krosa with all this RRRRamp (EDH / Commander)

Update 3/21/19:

• Concordant Crossroads: Gives me the Avenger of Z /Craterhoof alpha strike without having to wait a turn.

• Wilderness Reclamtion: Seedborn Muse redundancy for added Wrath deterrent.

• Beacon of Creation: Not tutorable like the Deranged Hermit it's replacing, but usually gonna make a lot more tokens than 4 and it shuffles itself back in.

• Harmonize: Draw more, do better.

Short version:

1) Lots of land
2) Metric fuckton of mana
3) Overrun
4) Overrun
5) Everyone dies

Long version:

Of all the decklists I've worked on, Kamahl is the only one I've actually assembled in its entirety. Mostly because I've always loved green and I had a lot of the more expensive cards sitting around.

You're probably asking why, if I were only building one deck, would I build Kamahl? Mono-green isn't that great. Too many weaknesses. And even still, mono-green surely has better commander options in Azusa or Yeva.

While it might be true, fuck all that noise. Kamahl is the green at its essence: mana hungry and overruny. With enough mana Kamahl becomes a one man army that only ever needs to attack once to alpha strike the board.

At its core, this is an aggro strategy, as you must turn creatures sideways in order to win but there is much more complexity to playing this deck. Manipulation and a good understanding of timing and opportunity are also required to play the deck as opponents will likely know what tricks you intend to play...you're going to ramp out and overrun. Simple. Hell, the good ones will probably know Avengerhoof Behemoth is, in most situations, your easiest route to victory.

With opponents on the lookout for the key pieces of your board state, it's necessary to manipulate opponents into leaving you alone for long enough to maneuver your hand into a position where you can win very suddenly by tutoring up your winning cards or sinking a shit ton of mana.

Kamahl doesn't play like your typical mono-green deck in that it doesn't field a lot of big beefy beaters to threaten damage or dissuade attackers. In fact, it's quite the opposite. This deck is non-threatening until opponents begin to get leery of the number of lands and mana doublers that you're accumulating. Which is about the time that they begin to rapidly gang bang you, the horrors of which this deck little defense for.

This deck has little defense period. Kamahl will inevitably provide a few chump blocks but this deck's best defense is its overwhelming offense and the ability to not allow the game to go long.

This deck is going to ask you to do a lot of math and that part kind of sucks, to be honest. First, you're going to have to count up how much mana you can produce. Then you've got to figure out how many times you can overrun while still casting the spells you need this turn. Then you've to figure out how many lands you need to leave untapped so that you can animate them before you overrun, which means you have less than the maximum amount of mana you just calculated. This is also going to require you to calculate the maximum amount of damage you'll be able to deal in various scenarios with say, X amount of creatures all getting +9/+9. Or perhaps you need X+2 creatures all getting +6/+6. If you don't want to bog that game down, start crunching numbers before it comes back around to your turn.

It's not as simple as just turning creatures sideways because with Kamahl it has to be a very calculated sideways turnage since you'll probably only really get 1 shot.
Tip - If you're ever in doubt, you'll probably do more damage if you overrun once less and have a few more creatures.

The list I've broken up into the following categories:

***Lands - Yes, I realize the deck should be running Snow-covered lands since we're running Extraplanar Lens. I don't give a shit, I enjoy the art on the cards, even basic lands!! and only having 2 different arts to choose from for a majority of the lands in your deck sounds lame.

Speaking of basics, you run a lot of them because this deck is capable of spitting out every basic land it contains thanks to Traverse the Outlands and Boundless Realms. Additionally, 5 of my mana doublers interact only with basics.

A lot of 'lands matter' decks run in the neighborhood of 40 lands to ensure plenty in the hand but this deck only needs to meet a threshold of 2 or 3 lands to really get rolling and tutoring land into the board on it's own. Due to the amount of ramp, hitting your land drops every turn is less important. But it is nice when it happens.
36 land seems very low for a deck with such a high average CMC but there's just so much ramp that it works.

I'd like to run more basics but the deck runs a fair amount of utility lands as mono-color decks are able to do without having a shaky manabase. Though it can be hard to say no to Gaea's Cradle, the ability to tutor up any land via Crop Rotation and Sylvan Scrying supports the deck's inherent toolbox ability, mostly revolving around effects attached to creatures and lots of ways to tutor those creatures.

Khalni Garden and Dryad Arbor give you creatures which works well with Cradle and Craterhoof effects and can be pitched to Natural Order or Survival of the Fittest, in the case of the Arbor. Dryad Arbor is weak to board wipes but oh well.
With Cavern of Souls, you're going to want to call Elemental to allow your Avenger to hit the board.

I've recently removed Arcane Lighthouse since there are very few things in the deck that want to target anything anyways. In its place I've added Winding Canyons for its ability to grant pseudo-haste by flashing in creatures during your opponent's end step which can protect against board wipes since the vast majority are sorcery speed thus setting up the crucial turn needed to win.

A possible include here is Mosswort Bridge, a card that has been in and out of this deck a few times. Love the ability to get something decent (usually) for cheap but the fact that it comes into play tapped kills me. There's things I want to cast turn one and I need every mana I can get as soon as I can spend it to keep tempo. Plus, it's one less basic that I'm running.

I removed/never included the cycling lands and land-fetching-lands like Myriad Landscape because they're slowed by either coming into play tapped or having an activation cost. This deck wants to curve out quickly and slow lands can be hugely detrimental to that. In most situations, I'd rather have a Forest coming into play untapped and synergizing with my doublers that specify Forests or basic lands.

While I agree that having the option to cycle is appealing, that situation only really arises when I'm looking for an answer and at that point, I'm top decking anyways.
The pros just don't outweigh the cons for me here. Speed kills and the cycling lands are just slow.

***Land Ramp - Kamahl's average CMC is significantly amount higher than the 3.3 I typically shoot for but believe me, this deck does not play slowly at all.

Green ramp decks are called so for a reason...There's tons of ramp and it's all across the mana curve. I included only cards that tutor lands onto the board because lands, especially basic ones, are relatively safe. Unless you play in a truly degenerate meta with a bunch of douche bags, nobody is going to be looking to blow up your basic lands.

An alternative in the ramp package would be Harrow. I'd love to find room for this because the lands enter untapped and instant speed to boot. Also, Explosive Vegetation, which is strictly worse than the rest of the 4-mana put 2 lands onto the board cards in the deck but if you're looking for another ramp spell...

You'll find no mana dorks tapping for mana in this deck as they're way too fragile and Kamahl weak to board wipes as it is.
Also, other than Oracle of Mul Daya (which you should know by now is amazing), you won't find any Exploration effects since I'm relatively thin on land for a deck that is so land hungry and card draw is not always a guarantee.

There are a few exceptions to my 'lands direct to board' rule:

• Sylvan Scrying - because it's sooo good
• Yavimaya Elder - for the same reason

Creatures that can spit land to the board are perfect for this deck since they boost my Cradle and 'Hoof effects, or can be fed to Natural Order/Birthing Pod/Survival of the Fittest to tutor up wins.
Creatures that fetch lands and also have ways to kill themselves are at an even higher premium since they make Pattern of Rebirth interactions much easier.

A few notable excludes here are:

• Yavimaya Granger - I'd love to get this back in
• Diligent Farmhand - There have been times he just sits there because I wanna spend the 2 mana elsewhere
• Fertilid - 5-mana to get one land out, or even 2 land for 7-mana, is not a good value

I've already mentioned Traverse the Outlands and Boundless Realms as all-stars, especially when you can float mana and follow them up with up with Early Harvest or Bear Umbra.

As a bonus, a lot of these rampers interact specifically with Forests, allowing you to tutor up the venerable and versatile Dryad Arbor.

You may notice that I decided to tell Sol Ring to fuck off. Sol Ring was only beneficial in this deck if I saw it within the first 4-5 turns of the game. Beyond that it is essentially a dead draw. At that point in the game I'd rather draw a land or something that nets me more land. A land means no casting cost, can be animated when it's time to kill, and in the likely event that I have a doubler on board, it's producing the same 2-mana that Sol Ring would but it's colored and it's protected from Vandalblast effects.

***Mana Doublers - As I mentioned above, 5 of these interact only with basic lands and some can give your opponents mana as well, so be aware. Don't give them shit unless it's winning you the game.
The doublers on a stick are great because they're easy to tutor up or cheat out.
Doubling Cube, Early Harvest, and to an extent Bear Umbra are a bit more conditional in needing to have a certain threshold of lands/mana to really be effective. However, reaching that tipping point (usually around 8 lands) is generally very easy and the payoff when you've got a doubler or three online it's disgusting.

I've tried to run as many doublers as possible but notable excludes here are:

• Heartbeat of Spring - I hate giving my opponents shit
• Zendikar Resurgent - Too expensive/not enough creatures to really cash in
• Patron of the Orochi - I like it but 8-mana!! and if I'm cheating in an 8-mana creature, Vorinclex is much better

***Draw - Other than some burst effects, green can have trouble drawing cards. While this deck is no exception, Kamahl helps to mitigate that weakness by providing an effective mana sink. Even if I top deck a late game ramp spell or a land, I'm still getting more of what I want - either a land to animate or more mana to overrun.

I include Mirri's Guile and Sensei's Diving Top (synergizes well with Worldly and Sylvan Tutors) here but they're really card filtering. Sometimes that's all I need. Especially with number of times I shuffle this deck.

This deck doesn't always have a lot of creatures on the board unless an alpha strike is coming the next turn so Shamanic Revelation can be a little thin on it's own but if Kamahl is on board, each additional green mana you spend will draw you an extra card.

While Shamanic Revelation counts all creatures you control, Regal Force specifically counts green creatures. This can be a serious drawback since animated lands are colorless but the fact that it's a creature makes it so easily tutorable that it's impossible not to run.
Worst case scenario - I'm probably drawing 3 cards, so I'm getting Harmonize tacked onto a 5/5 body that's only costing me an extra 3-mana. Not too shabby.
Best case scenario - entwined Tooth and Nail dropping Avenger of Zendikar + Regal Force to draw 10+ cards setting you up to 'hoof out next turn.

***Creature tutor - This toolbox is here to provide either answers or win-cons depending on the timing and board state.

Some affects tutor creatures to hand or the top of the deck is and these are great because they're generally cheap. Suumoner's Pact typically ends up being free since I don't usually crack it til I'm ready for the win-con.

Speaking of free, I've tried to include affects that dump creatures right onto the battlefield since cheating mana costs is one of the most powerful abilities in the game.

Of those cards, Pattern of Rebirth can be a little conditional since it relies on the creature to die but I've tried to include creatures that have ways to killing themselves though I did recently remove Diligent Farmhand.

One exclude here is Eldritch Evolution. The majority of my creatures are CMC3, and most of the creatures I want are CMC6+ so the searching constraints hurt this card.

***Removal - Plenty of creature-based, non-creature removal to be tutored up for all situations.
The removal spells capable of hitting creatures (Song of the Dryads and Desert Twister) are king here since sometimes you just need to kill a Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Magus of the Moat, or Aven Mindcensor.
Unfortunately these unrestricted removal spells aren't tutorable.
(Aven Mindcensor leaves this deck especially fucked so you better hope you draw into an answer.)

New add:
When I saw Meteor Golem at an M19 pre-release I knew that it would be a viable option for tutorable mostly unconditional removal that can hit creatures. 7-mana is a bit steep if I have to cast it, but Kamahl can produce that mana easily. In a meta where Indestructible is more prevalent, Duplicant may suit you better but you're losing a lot of flexibility in targeting.

***Token generators - Even though they can serve as creatures in a pinch, lands are more valuable when they are being turned sideways for mana so as with any overrun deck, token generators are a must. Avenger of Zendikar is far and away the number one option here. Deranged Hermit is there for redundancy and is often a great target for the 5-drop Birthing Pod slot.

Beacon of Creation could do some serious work in the deck but the fact that it's not a creature means I can't consistently find it to cast it.

***Protection - As all creature based decks do, Kamahl suffers at the hands of board wipes so I have a suite of options to help deal with the inevitable.

• Heroic Intervention is the gold standard here.
• Seedborn Muse allows me to have the mana needed to turn my opponents lands into creatures, providing political leverage should my opponent be considering a wrath. Wrath at the risk of Armageddon-ing your own lands...
• Temur Sabertooth is a neat, versatile addition. Worst case scenario, it allows me to abuse my ETB effects. Best case scenario, it saves my Avenger of Z from a board wipe. And believe me, people are holding the board wipes until after Avenger of Z hits the board.
  It's often wise to not drop the Avenger until you've also got the mana to protect him.