Howdy partners, welcome to Thunder Junction. There ain't no laws around here, only the ones you make. So buckle up, and get that quick draw ready, it's time to sling some spells. We are back again for the release of Outlaws of Thunder Junction and the commander decks alongside.
Outlaws of Thunder Junction is the wild west inspired set that topped a poll back in early 2023 when Mark Rosewater asked about what new world players wanted to see. Considering that Wizards work on a timeline that is 2-3 years in advance, they were on the money for this set. And coming from Murders at Karlov Manor being the murder mystery set, I look forward to seeing some of the other ideas on the list.
Back to the commander decks, this collection of blogs is going to go over some ideas and upgrades for the decks, but on a budget. So no need for a daring bank heist or Outrageous Robbery. These are going to be 10 cards for less than £10, at least at the time of writing, so you best be quick if something catches your eye, as I know that some of my previous suggestions for the Fallout decks spiked in price not long after publishing. This first blog will be going over the Desert Bloom deck, if you are looking for others, just click the links here, and I'll see you there: Quick Draw, Most Wanted and Grand Larceny. It's High Noon, so grab your six shooter and let's get started.
Table of Contents
Desert Bloom
Desert Blooms is helmed by Yuma, Proud Protector as a Naya (White, Red & Green) commander that, as the name suggests, cares about lands with an emphasis on deserts.
On the face of it, Yuma is a 8 cost commander, but he does get a discount for every land in your graveyard. This is another take on a lands based commander deck, with the other prominent ones being Lord Windgrace and either of the Gitrog Monsters (The Gitrog Monster and Thalia and The Gitrog Monster). Desert Bloom can also benefit from the token based synergies, as Yuma can make Plant Warrior tokens. This, alongside the other token generators, provides excellent value and an alternative win condition.
I will first start out with some honourable mentions in the form of lands, as this is a land based deck, I could fill all the slots with just lands, but that wouldn't make for that much of an interesting read, so I will just list them here. First off, we have the New Capenna search lands, these will provide fixing as well as land into the graveyard to discount Yuma. You can run all 5 of these, but I feel like having Obscura Storefront is a bit of a waste, as the others will at least let you pick from 2 colours to fetch, with the best being Cabaretti Courtyard allowing for any colour to be grabbed. And if you want to splash out, you can get the “upgraded” version, in other words, fetch lands, such as Windswept Heath. These not only let you get the basics but any land with the typing, such as the shock lands or cycle lands that are included in the deck. These work nicely with the Landfall cards allowing for double triggers of these. The final land I wanted to mention in this bit is Ash Barrens, which has basic land cycling. This lets you pay (1) and discard Ash Barrens to search your library for any basic land. I put this on a level with Cabaretti Courtyard, which will let you get any colour for your deck. It trades the 1 life for being able to play it if you need a land untapped that turn to play another card.
Upgrade 1
Moving onto the actual cards I am swapping in, we have World Breaker. This fills in a number of roles, being fairly flexible. Exactly what you want cards in your EDH deck to be. The main reason I am putting this card in is it is hard to stop removal. This is due to the effect not being on enter the battlefield. Instead, it triggers when you cast World Breaker, adding an additional effect to the stack as well as the creature spell. So a regular counterspell won't cut it, it will require something like a Disallow being used, but this will only deal with one half of the problem - either the body or the ability. To fully answer this, I can only think of 1 counterspell Summary Dismissal, although there are a couple of tricks you can use to stop this too. Time Stop and Discontinuity, as ending the turn, will exile all spells and abilities on the stack, so they won't happen. Just a neat little trick you can use in your next commander game. The card coming out is Genesis Hydra, while being a nice big body and replacing itself is nice. World Breaker has more utility with it being an answer and also a way to get lands into the graveyard to then be an answer again.
Upgrade 2
The next card I am recommending is Aftermath Analyst. This comes with the honourable mention of Splendid Reclamation. Both have the ability to return all lands to the battlefield for (3)(G), but the reason I chose Aftermath Analyst over Splendid Reclamation is because Analyst comes with a body that mills you 3 cards, potentially fueling itself. As well as the ability being instant speed. This just gives it an edge over Reclamation. Swapping out for this is Perpetual Timepiece. While Timepiece is a repeated source of milling cards and can have some cute interaction with Yuma if you get lucky to mill a desert, that is all it does, really. It can let you return your key pieces, but this shuffles them back into your library. Without tutors in the deck then this isn't that much of a benefit. Both Analyst and Reclamation allow you to either ramp ahead or reuse lands.
Upgrade 3
For better recursion, I am putting in Loamcrafter Faun. This not only lets you funnel more lands into the graveyard, but it also lets you bring back key pieces by doing a nice switcharoo. The only downside is that this can’t get lands back, unlike Skullwinder, which is the card I am swapping out. But as I have stated in my previous blogs, as much as this can be used politically, I don't like to give my opponents choices. I prefer to try to do that in other ways, rather than giving my opponents more resources. Loamcrafter Faun also has the added benefit of being able to return multiple cards if you have the lands to pitch. This pushes it over Skullwinder for me.
Upgrade 4
As much as I like a lot of lands in a lands matters deck, especially one that sacrifices them, 40 lands is a lot. So I am removing a Forest. This is also due to the amount of recursion for lands already in the deck and what I am adding to it. Replacing this is Knight of the Reliquary. Not only is this a great way to pull any desert or utility lands such as Scavenger Grounds. It also can be a sizable body and has been used successfully in the past as a finisher for both Modern and Legacy decks.
Upgrade 5
Bitter Reunion, to me, feels like a bit of weird inclusion. Sure, it can let you discard land to help your graveyard plan, but most of the time, this card is played for the second ability - being able to give all your creatures haste for a turn. This effect has been used in decks that use Atraxa Grand Unifier for this purpose while also being on an enchantment. This deck, at least on first look, doesn't look to be suddenly dumping a lot of power in a single turn. This seems to be more of a grindy deck, accruing value of multiple turns. Giving less need for sudden haste that Bitter Reunion offers. To go along with the value train is Sprouting Goblin. This was a solid draft card. Not a bomb, but it did work in the Domain archetype, as it was able to get you the dual lands to boost your Domain count. While not caring as much for the Domain, this little goblin will be able to get you a typed land to hand. This is a nice little synergy with the two cycle lands that are in the deck, Scattered Groves and Sheltered Thicket. Giving you an option to either play them out as lands or, if you are good for mana cycling them into a new card. Sprouting Goblin also has a second ability. It’s one that I personally didn't use much in draft but will be great in Desert Bloom. Being able to, at instant speed, sacrifice a land and draw a card is useful. Both adding the lands to the graveyard but also letting you sacrifice a desert to trigger Yuma for a possible surprise blocker.
Upgrade 6 & 7
For even more ways to get surprise blockers there is Edge of Autumn or Entish Restoration. Edge of Autumn is a very niche card usually relegated to the Legacy Doomsday decks as a free way to cycle a card. I am adding this less so for the main casting of the card, as you might get lucky to see this in your first few turns to be able to use it as intended to ramp. I am mostly adding it as a surprise free way to sacrifice a desert and trigger Yuma. Entish Restoration has been cropping up into more Commander decks since its printing in the Lord Of The Rings set. This is a solid ramp option to go alongside Harrow, which is in the deck already, and the honourable mention of their cousin Roiling Regrowth. These all do a similar thing - sacrifice a land to get 2 more basic lands. This is what the base form, Roiling Regrowth, does and why it is relegated to the honourable mention slot. Harrow, while already in the deck, also has the lands enter untapped, which can let you cast more spells. Entish Restoration has the biggest upside for me, though, as it has a conditional effect of if you control a creature with 4 power or greater, you get 3 lands instead. I am cutting both Thrilling Discovery and Embrace the Unknown. These are good cards and work in the deck. If you end up brewing a lot of Commander decks, you will find the last few cuts hard to make, and this is one of them. It does its role nicely. You could leave in both of these instead, especially Embrace the Unknown, as it is a new card, but I like the opportunities the other two give.
Upgrade 8
To help replay all those sacrificed lands, we have Conduit of Worlds. Not only does this give you the option to play lands from your graveyard similar to Crucible of Worlds. It also has the upside of playing a non-land permanent as well. This does come with the downside of not letting you cast anything else, but for the key cards, this recursion can be critical. Angel of Indemnity is another one that I don't want to be cutting as it is a new card, and without playing with it it can be hard to judge a card's full worth. It’s a good body with excellent keywords of flying and lifelink. It is taking a similar slot to Conduit in the recursion ability. I am favouring Conduit of Worlds mostly as it is not limited to converted mana cost (CMC), as many of the big effects are higher CMC while also letting you double dip by replaying the lands for free.
Upgrade 9
I am cutting Magmatic Insight as this is just card filtering instead of card draw, while also having the drawback of having to discard a land. As much as having the filtering in the deck is nice, I think that just having more powerful cards like the Conduit helps alleviate this, alongside all the other ways to get lands into the graveyard. Speaking of which, our next card does that nicely. Ayula’s Influence and the honourable mention for another cousin, Seismic Assault. While the triple green casting cost can be rough this allows you to make blockers or just slowly gather an army of bear tokens at instant speed. This pairs nicely with my next suggestion…
Upgrade 10
Shared Animosity is a strong card when put into a token or typal deck. Giving you a budget friendly finisher. Shared Animosity works well in Desert Bloom as it has a number of different token makers, from Yuma as the commander to cards like Hazezon, Shaper of Sand or Avenger of Zendikar. I am cutting the other Anthem effect in the deck, Marshal's Anthem. This has always been one of my sleeper anthems as it does double duty in terms of being an Anthem as well as being recursion. But as we are already playing green we have access to a fair bit of that in the deck already. I decided to use Shared Animosity over Marshal's Anthem as it is a bigger Anthem and can be turned into an easier finisher which the deck is kind of lacking.
Conclusion
Desert Bloom is a new take on an old archetype. Changing up the colour combinations to Naya (Red Green White) gives a fresh take on how to build a lands deck. While maintaining the usual grindy value style deck the other decks tend to employ. Yuma, Proud Protector gives you the value in the command zone while also being able to “dodge” the commander tax by having the built in discount. This can be especially useful if he becomes a ‘kill on sight’ commander. I think that Desert Bloom can be built in a number of different ways if you are looking to make it your own, you can lean more heavily into a landfall style deck instead. You could build a weird token strategy as you have access to all the token doublers in these colours. Or you could go even further with the graveyard synergies as I have started here. I will also leave you with the super spicy card of Overlaid Terrain. I felt like this was a bit too much spice to be adding to the deck, but it also leads to my final suggestion on how to build this deck. All in mass land destruction! This isn't my most recommended strategy, as it will lead to a lot of hate and salt. But it can work out in this deck, Using Yuma as an effective 3 mana 6/6 with potentially more free bodies as well when you blow up all the lands with cards like Armageddon and Ravages of War. With the aim to leave no one else the resources to play the game as you beat down with Yuma and the plant tokens. Just use caution. How you want to build this deck falls down to your playstyle, and to help along with that, here are my other suggestions that might not be budget friendly as well.
Non-budget Upgrades
You can pick up the Desert Bloom Commander Deck deck here at Gathering Games. Hopefully, I will see you in part 2 where we will be taking a look at the Quick Draw deck. Ye-Ha, and as always, good luck and have fun.
PS. All the card prices were accurate at the time of writing.
Shop Outlaws of Thunder Junction and Magic: The Gathering right here at Gathering Games.
Magic The Gathering: Outlaws of Thunder Junction Desert Bloom Commander Deck
£34.99
£39.99
Description After fleeing his old life, Yuma finds new purpose caring for an infant cactusfolk. Join him and his cactus friends to weed out your opponents with a deck that’s ready to play right out of the box and experience… read more
