The cool legendary team-ups from March of the Machine keep coming! I’ve done deep dives on Thalia and The Gitrog Monster (here) and Slimefoot and Squee (here), and this week I’m diving into our Ixalan duo, Ghalta and Mavren!
Flavor-wise, the idea of a Vampire riding on a Dinosaur is badass and I’m totally here for it. Mechanically, the card is a decently faithful mash-up of the two original legends, Ghalta, Primal Hunger and Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle.
I was pleasantly surprised the card is just as huge as Ghalta, a 12/12 with trample; for seven mana with more upside, it’s a heckuva deal. I know in the modern era of Commander, a seven-mana legend isn’t appealing to some players, but this is exactly the sort of Commander life I want to live. Green gives plenty of mana ramp options to make seven or more mana to cast your commander totally feasible, and besides, there are plenty of things you want to be doing in the turns leading up to the turn you cast Ghalta and Mavren.
Fun with Ghalta and Mavren
Your commander has an ability that can be triggered immediately if you have one or more creatures you want to attack with. You want either an attacker with a high power, so you can make a tapped and attacking X/X Dinosaur token with trample, where X is the greatest power among other attacking creatures, or a bunch of attacking creatures so that you create X 1/1 Vampire tokens with lifelink, where X is the number of other attacking creatures. Of note, Ghalta and Mavren cannot include itself in either of its choices, so you really need other creatures to take advantage of the attack trigger.
What’s really cool is you can lean hard in either direction. You could be a “go-tall” deck featuring creatures up the mana curve with high power and focus on “power matters” themes. You could be a “go-wide” deck with tons of token creatures that can swarm opponents. Alternatively, you can straddle the line and shift directions, depending on the cards you draw and the state of the game.
Another option is a creature tribal approach. You could be a Selesnya Dinosaur deck, which would play different from the typical Naya Dinosaur tribal decks. You could be a Selesnya Vampire deck, which would play really different from any other Vampire tribal deck out there, and likely need to dip into green Shapeshifters with changeling to get a critical mass of Vampires. Or you could even try out a hybrid approach with both Dinosaurs and Vampires. Maybe tie them together with Maskwood Nexus?
All of these choices mean that each person’s version of Ghalta and Mavren has the potential of being quite different from anyone else’s, which is super-cool! Let’s dive in.
Dinosaur Tribal
There are still a ton of awesome Dinosaur tribal cards in Selesnya, including cards like Kinjalli’s Caller and Knight of the Stampede to help cast them more cheaply. If I were going this route, I’d want to include some fight spells to help trigger the enrage ability on cards like Ranging Raptors and Ripjaw Raptor, and there are some good ones these days like Tail Swipe and Bushwhack, in addition to the classic Dinosaur fight spell Savage Stomp.
Deathmist Raptor might seem a little odd without other morph creatures in the deck, but I think it’s still a decent-sized Dinosaur to round out the lower part of your mana curve.
Vampire Tribal
Vampire tribal cards are much thinner here. Green has never been a color where Vampires show up, and white has to do all the heavy lifting. Still, there are some solid Vampires here, such as Welcoming Vampire for card draw and Bishop of Rebirth for graveyard recursion. Legion’s Landing probably finds a slot whether or not we’re going with Vampire tribal.
Tribal Support
Whether we go Dinosaur tribal, Vampire tribal, or a mix of both, we’ve got access to some solid tribal support cards in Selesnya. Realmwalker and Mirror Entity are awesome, with Mirror Entity also being great if we’re leaning into the “go wide” strategy. I like Door of Destinies better for Vampire support, since they tend to be smaller – especially the tokens – so boosting their size in later stages of the game is clutch. Kindred Summons is a high-cost, high-reward spell that is bound to do some amazing work no matter which tribe you’re leaning towards. For flavor, Radiant Destiny brings tribal support from the Ixalan homeland, +1/+1 and vigilance assuming we’ve got the city’s blessing.
Creature Tokens
Selesnya absolutely provides a ton of support for a token-based “go wide” strategy, so if filling the battlefield with a bunch of token creatures is your jam, Ghalta and Mavren can lead you to victory. The new Mondrak, Glory Dominus joins the golden gang of Anointed Procession and Doubling Season. We can leverage solid card draw with Rite of Harmony; Toski, Bearer of Secrets; Ohran Frostfang; and even Shamanic Revelation to keep our hands fueled. Rabble Rousing constantly impresses me in how quickly it can generate a bunch of creature tokens, and it’s entirely possible that we can end up with fifteen tapped creatures to untap with Halo Fountain for an alternative win condition.
Queen Allenal of Ruadach is a great inclusion for this style of build. She goes tall while the rest of the deck is going wide, and you can potentially cast Ghalta and Mavren and attack with the Queen to make a huge attacking Dinosaur with trample if you need to punch through blockers.
Creature Size Matters
If we want to lean more towards a go-tall strategy, there are all sorts of great high-powered creatures to round out our mana curve with. To support those, I love Garruk’s Uprising since it draws cards and gives your big creatures trample. I also really like the new Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus here, since doubling power and toughness each combat can really dominant the battlefield both on offense and defense. I’m excited to have Selvala, Heart of the Wilds on the battlefield when I cast Ghalta and Mavren, probably drawing a card from the trigger, and then being able to tap Selvala for a whopping twelve mana! Ram Through is incredible in conjunction with high-power creatures with trample, and can truly be a green instant-speed Fireball directly to an opponent’s life total.
A hidden gem for a deck like this with high-power creatures is Cream of the Crop, which can completely set up a quality draw each turn.
On the white side of the equation, True Conviction will be a blowout card when you’ve got a handful of large trampling creatures that can then attack for double strike damage with lifelink.
Haste
Even though Ghalta and Mavren don’t need to be attacking to get value from its abilities, this is a 12/12 trampling creature that you’ll want to get aggressive with, so I’d strongly consider ways to give it haste. Outside of red, it can be a little tricky to gain haste, so we can lean on the artifacts Lightning Greaves, Crashing Drawbridge, and even Akroma’s Memorial.
Surrak, the Hunt Caller is a hidden gem I like to include in my nonred green decks with a fair amount of large creatures and seems perfect for the go-tall plan. If you want to gamble, you can play Concordant Crossroads and hope your opponents won’t benefit from it more than you, though Authority of the consuls and Blind Obedience can help break the symmetry.
High Mana Cost Matters
Wizards of the Coast (WotC) likes printing cards that power up around higher-cost cards, especially when it’s your commander, like Visions of Dominance and Visions of Glory, Majestic Genesis, and Tangleweave Armor. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Runadi, Behemoth Caller played in a Commander pod yet, and it’s a bit expensive, but if you have one, it seems like this would be a decent deck for it; Ghalta and Mavren would enter the battlefield with three +1/+1 counters and thus have haste!
Ramp
Green offers up a ton of mana ramp option, but with a seven-mana commander, I would lean away from cards like Rampant Growth and instead run higher-cost cards like Cultivate and Skyshroud Claim. Mirari’s Wake seems like a great choice for the go-wide strategy to boost your token creatures, while providing enough of a mana boost to cast your commander.
Selesnya is the very best color combination for excellent mana acceleration right in your manabase with Krosan Verge, Myriad Landscape, and Blighted Woodland.
What are you planning on doing with Ghalta and Mavren once March of the Machine is available? What other mash-up, team-up legendary cards are you hoping to see?
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