On Theme: There's No Place Like Home

This week we are going to talk about a project that I have been working on for a while. The idea started at Gencon a year ago when I heard someone talking about a theme deck based on farming. This got me thinking about other themes, things based on non-game mechanics, and being from  the great midwest state of Kansas there is really only one thing that comes to mind.

Wizard of Oz.




Ruby Slippers, Midgets and Hydrophobic Witches. You can’t go anywhere in this state without running into a Toto’s Tacos or a Oz winery, so it is a pretty easy theme to decide on, though it is one that has been a challenge to complete for sure.  


So like any theme it needs some rules, and here is what I came up with.


1. All major characters have to be represented with Legendary Cards.


2. It's going to have to be five color.


3. It has to be fun.


So we start in the same place that any Commander deck starts, looking for a commander. Who could run this deck. There are not many five color generals.


Atogatog
Child of Alara
Cromat
Horde of Notions
Karona, False God
Progenitus
Reaper King
Scion of the Ur-Dragon
Sliver Legion
Sliver Overlord
Sliver Queen


Of this fairly short list is is pretty easy to throw out all the crazy fantasy creature, like the dragons and the slivers. Of the human like ones left, you really only have one that fits the theme.

Reaper King, will work to give us five colors. It also fulfills the major characters represented by Legendary Creatures, he is out Scarecrow. Now he isn’t really useful in a deck that isn’t built around him, so he is mainly here for color and theme.

So we start looking at the other main characters, making a quick list of the main ones we have:

Dorothy and Toto, The Cowardly Lion, The Tin Woodsman, the Muchinkins, the Two Witches and the Wizard.


So starting with the one with the fewest choices, let’s take alook at the Woodman. There are really only two cards I could think of that fit the card. Bosh, Iron Golem and Karn, Silver Golem. Of the two Bosh is very build around but Karn would let us turn any mana rocks into blockers and lets us use Wraths to kill other people's artifacts, plus he is all silver looking anyway. So he gets the nod as out Tin Woodsman. We will have to find him an axe later.


Looking at legendary cats, I went to Jareth, Leonine Titan. He is focused on defense, which is nice for the Cowardly part of the character. He is also pointing us to a bit of a theme of big defense characters. A 11/14 wall is pretty beefy and when he can turn his force field of protection on for a single white he becomes something really hard to deal with.


Now the key character of the movie is Dorothy. I find her boring but you can’t do the theme without her so we had to find one that worked with some of the cooler cards we are playing with. Things that the deck likes to play with are artifacts and enchantments so it was pretty easy to pick Hanna, Ship’s Navigator. She lets us reuse some of those cool effects and lets us recover from wraths and removal. You can’t have Dorothy without Toto and the card for him is just to easy to pick, Isamaru, Hound of Konda is the only legendary Hound so he gets a place in the deck.

The two witches, Glenda the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West, were fairly easy to pick. Braids works for both and they are fairly powerful effects. So not much to say about them really. Oz was also pretty easy, Arcum Dagsson, he is just perfect since he tutors up things like Spellbook (Scarecrow’s Brain) or a Golem’s Heart (Tinman’s Heart), which is super fitting with character from the movie.

With most of the main characters listed we will quickly run down some minor ones. Auntie Em is played by Mother of Runes, Flying monkeys are the two Primocs, with got Workhorse for the Horse of Different Color. The munchkins are played by kithkin, with Gaddock Teeg as the mayor. The crabby Apple Trees as being represented by Doran, the Siege Tower and his Treefolk friends, furthering the defensive nature of the deck.


Now that is really all the creatures for now, it is time to talk about some spells. Things that just scream Wizard of Oz. Savage Twister and Desert Twister do a good job of being the Tornado, and things like Sleep and Three Dreams play on some of the It was all a dream theme of the movie. As mentioned before there are a few artifacts that represent the gifts of the wizard, Spellbook, Golem’s Heart, Sigil of Distinction. We also have two pair of ruby slippers, Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots.


So here is the decklist so far:


Wizard of Oz Commander Deck 60/100


Commander: 1


01 Reaper King (Scarecrow)


Creatures: 28


01 Hanna, Ship's Navigator (Dorothy)
01 Karn, Silver Golem (Tin Man)
01 Jareth, Leonine Titan (Cowardly Lion)
01 Isamaru, Hound of Konda (ToTo)
01 Arcum Dagsson (The Great Oz)
01 Braids, Conjurer Adept (Glenda the Good Witch)
01 Braids, Cabal Minion (Wicked Witch of the West)
01 Doran, the Siege Tower (Crabby Apple Tree)
01 Primoc Escapee (Flying Monkey)
01 Thoughtbound Primoc (Flying Monkey)
01 Mother of Runes (Auntie Em)
01 Metathran Aerostat (Oz's Balloon)
01 Bosk Banneret (Crabby Apple Tree)
01 Unstoppable Ash (Crabby Apple Tree)
01 Dauntless Dourbark (Crabby Apple Tree)
01 Leaf-Crowned Elder (Crabby Apple Tree)
01 Indomitable Ancients (Crabby Apple Tree)
01 Lumberknot (Crabby Apple Tree)
01 Ballyrush Banneret (Munchkins)
01 Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile (Munchkins)
01 Burrenton Shield-Bearers (Munchkins)
01 Cenn's Tactician (Munchkins)
01 Galepowder Mage (Munchkins)
01 Gaddock Teeg (Munchkins)
01 Kithkin Shielddare  (Munchkins)
01 Thistledown Liege  (Munchkins)
01 Thoughtweft Trio (Munchkins)
01 Workhorse (Horse of Another Color)



Artifacts: 7


01 Swiftfoot Boots (Ruby Slippers)
01 Lightning Greaves (Ruby Slippers)
01 Golem's Heart (Tin Man's "Heart")
01 Sigil of Distinction (Lion's "Courage")
01 Spellbook (Scarecrow's "Brain")
01 Flying Carpet (Witch's Broom)
01 Soratami Cloud Chariot (Oz's Balloon)


Sorcery: 4


01 Desert Twister (The Tornado)
01 Savage Twister (The Tornado)
01 Sleep (Its a Dream, Field of Poppies)
01 Journey of Discovery (We're off to see the wizard)
01 Recross the Paths (Follow the Yellow Brick Road)


Instant: 5


01 Consign to Dream (It was all a dream)
01 Three Dreams (You were there...and you were there)
01 Curtain of Light (Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain)
01 Momentous Fall (The falling house)
01 Otherworldly Journey (arriving at OZ)


Enchantment: 7


01 Carpet of Flowers (the field of poppies)
01 Narcolepsy (...falling asleep in the poppies)
01 Dream Halls (A world in a dream)
01 Concordant Crossroads (We're off to see the wizard)
01 Hall of Gemstone (Emerald City)
01 Flowering Field (Poppies)
01 Journey to Nowhere (It was all a dream)


Land: 8


01 Serra's Sanctum (Emerald City)
01 Homeward Path (Yellowbrick Road)
01 Kabira Crossroads (Yellowbrick Road)

01 Seaside Citadel
01 Arcane Sanctum
01 Jungle Shrine
01 Savage Lands
01 Crumbling Necropolis


So we are about 40 cards short of the full deck. And here comes one of the big problems of building a theme deck, trying to find enough cards to fit the time that you can build a deck with. If we were in a format that didn’t have the singleton rule, this would be easier, just doubling up some of the cards. But we aren't so I need help finishing the deck. If we add lands, roughly 38 or so total lands, that leaves us with 10 cards left to fill, so I am turning to my newfound audience for help. What do you think I should add to the deck, and why does that card fit the theme of Wizard of Oz?


As always thanks for joining me here and reading my ramblings. If you got any ideas for the deck or any other strange themes you would like to see built shoot me an email at jmfelber@gmail.com, or hit my twitter @RealFelber. I am hoping to eventually start taking weekly deck building challenges to write about, so any ideas are welcome. I am also on the Salvation boards, as HatterofMad, all the time and if you wanna check out my experiment in MTG Trading check out The One Red Mountain Project.


Next week we will be looking at my favorite type of theme deck, Tribal Decks and some of the MVP Cards for the format.


Jon Felber