Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty preview season is in the books, and we now know all the cards from the set and from the Commander precons. There are a lot of awesome new legends with cool implications for Commander, and I’m looking forward to digging into them. Last week I did a deep dive into Tatsunari, Toad Rider, so be sure to check that out if you haven’t already. This week I’d like to explore the final entry in the Kodama of the Tree cycle that began in Champions of Kamigawa, Kodama of the West Tree!
Kodama of the West Tree brings the brand-new keyword modified to the command zone and the 99 of more Commander decks than you might think. It packs quite an ability punch attached to a 3/3 body with reach for three mana, which is likely why it’s a mythic rare.
Creatures that have Equipment, Auras, or counters on them are likely to be larger than their natural state; giving them trample is a fantastic way to evade chump blockers that might otherwise slow down the beatdown. But wait, there’s more!
Truth be told, I kind of wish this wasn’t land ramp attached to the triggered ability. Honestly, green has more quality ramp options than you can possibly put into a mono-green deck, much less a multicolor deck that Kodama of the West Tree’s single green mana pip allows it to easily slot into. Land ramp is one of the most powerful game mechanics in the Commander format, allowing access to costlier and more powerful spells ahead of curve. Having land ramp attached to your commander is pretty busted, especially one like this one that “has haste” since it can be used on the turn it enters the battlefield.
But we don’t live in the land of wishes. We live in the land of cards as printed, so if you’re playing plenty of creatures and spells that turn meet the modified classification and they deal damage to opponents (perhaps thanks to that trample), you’ll be ramping. One upside to this is that you can potentially cut back on the ramp spells you’d typically play in a green deck. This leaves you more room for action.
Let’s dive in!
Modified
Bringing a new keyword to the Magic lexicon, the new set and Commander decks offer up some sweet cards that care about controlling a modified creature to pair up with Kodama of the West Tree. I’m particularly excited about Silkguard. The instant-speed X-spell can give all your Auras, Equipment and modified creatures hexproof until the end of the turn, while allowing you to put a +1/+1 counter on up to X target creatures, scaling quite nicely the more mana and creatures you have. But what’s nice is its flexibility—you can cast it for one green mana to get one-half of Heroic Intervention for most of your relevant permanents.
Kosei, Penitent Warlord is a really cool new card that wants to be modified in each of the ways a creature can be modified, and once it does, it unlocks a very powerful effect. A fun mini-quest you can build into your deck, or make the commander of its own deck!
Equipment
The new Equipment creatures from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty offer a nice, flexible way to help ensure you have a way to modify a creature when you need to do that, or a creature to modify when you don’t have another creature. In this way, they remind me a bit of the bestow creatures that can turn into Auras. Tanuki Transplanter and Webspinner Cuff offer solid ways to avoid overextending into a battlefield sweeper, since once you attach them to a creature with the transfigure ability, they’re no longer creatures but will “drop off” and become creatures once that modified creature is destroyed.
Of course, there are no shortage of high-quality Equipment cards we can add to the deck to modify our creature base; in particular, I’d first-pick Sword of the Animist and Sword of Hearth and Home as replacements for Rampant Growth and Cultivate, since they’d still give you some added ramp while upping the chances of being able to modify your creatures.
Basilisk Collar is another one to grab since deathtouch and trample go so well together, and it’s always nice to gain some life.
Nettlecyst and Helm of the Gods play particularly well if you’re also going to tap into Auras to modify your creatures.
Equipment Matters
If we’re leaning heavily into Equipment for our modifications, there are definitely some other cards we’d want to include. Hammer of Nazahn is an all-star, letting you skip the first equip cost when you cast it, and then letting you attach any subsequent Equipment cards you play to a target creature you control. This, along with Brass Squire and Armory Automaton, lets you skip the transfigure cost on the Equipment creatures.
Auras
Since Auras are another way to modify your creatures, it’s worth exploring some higher-quality ones we have available. Rancor comes to mind, though it inherently gives trample, so that from Kodama is redundant. Still, the fact that Rancor keeps coming back to your hand if it or the creature it enchants gets destroyed is a big upside. I also like the totem armor Auras like Bear Umbra, providing some protection from removal while giving other useful effects.
Colossification makes something humongous, so it really appreciates the trample ability from Kodama. Shape of the Wiitigo gives a whopping six +1/+1 counters on the enchanted creature, making it doubly modified, with the potential of getting more counters each time you attack or block.
Auras Matter
We can certainly lean further towards the Auras and enchantments side of things and take advantage of some of the great cards that care about those types of permanents. Setessan Champion is probably the all-star here, letting you draw extra cards while modifying itself each time an enchantment enters your battlefield. I also like Beastmaster’s Magemark, since it combines with Kodama’s trample-granting ability to make gang-blocking your enchanted creatures quite difficult.
+1/+1 Counters
Every set that Wizards of the Coast (WotC) produces has a handful of high-quality cards that either have, make, or benefit from +1/+1 counters, so it’s incredibly easy to lean into that theme and accidentally have a busted deck that’s hard to fight against. The new card Ascendant Acolyte seems particularly bonkers in this style of deck and is terrifying with Kodama giving it trample.
Even if you don’t lean heavy into the +1/+1 counter theme, you’ll at the least want to run Loyal Guardian, who can immediately make each of your creatures modified with a +1/+1 counter if it survives to your combat step alongside Kodama.
X Hydras
Most of Magic’s Hydras tend to have +1/+1 counters built right in, and often scale larger the more mana you put into them. This synergizes quite nicely with Kodama, since each time you connect with your Hydras and ramp, the next Hydras you cast will be that much bigger.
Modular
Another class of creature that naturally have +1/+1 counters on them are the modular artifact creatures and their ilk. Mono-green modular tribal—why not? Cards like Hangarback Walker and Stonecoil Serpent certainly appreciate the incidental land ramp that Kodama will provide along the way.
Spikes
For the sake of completion, let’s not overlook the Spikes as creatures with built-in +1/+1 counters. The bench of quality creatures is pretty shallow, but Spike Feeder and Spike Weaver can do some real work when combined with ways to increase their counters over time.
Thallids
If you want to really build outside the box, how about the various Fungus creatures that add spore counters to themselves – those count as modifications too! The spore counters don’t make them bigger and most of them aren’t inherently large creatures, so you’d likely want some other ways to make them bigger. Beastmaster Ascension comes to mind.
Other Counters
Speaking of other types of counters counting as modifications, Slippery Bogbonder gives a creature a hexproof counter. Hornbash Mentor’s trample counter is redundant with Kodama, but its activated ability can boost your entire modified team if Kodama is on the battlefield, giving everyone trample.
The new spell Invoke the Ancients gives you two 4/5 Spirit creature tokens, and since Kodama already would give them trample, might as well choose one of the other types of counters to put on them—for my money, it’s probably going to be vigilance in Commander.
Landfall
Kodama’s land ramp ability lends itself well to landfall and other abilities that trigger from land entering your battlefield. There are a ton of them to choose from; the ones I noted above help with modifying your creatures alongside the land triggers, like the new card Roaring Earth!
Lands Matter
Since Kodama lets us land ramp, it’d be nice to include some cards that enjoy the excess lands. Blackblade Reforged is one of my all-time favorite cards. I love that it instantly makes Kodama of the West Tree a threat to kill with commander damage thanks to the trample. And let’s not forget about the slow card advantage of the Clue-generating Tireless Tracker, which modifies itself with +1/+1 counters along the way.
Shuffle the Library
Let’s not forget one subtle benefit of ramping lands out of your deck—you get to shuffle your library! This plays particularly well with cards and abilities that let you look at and play from the top of your deck, like Augur of Autumn and Sylvan Library. Scroll Rack does a great job sculpting a perfect hand when you can put cards you don’t need back on top of your deck and shuffle them away with Kodama’s trigger.
Spirits Matter
Lastly, let’s not forget that Kodama is a Spirit creature, and there were some cards in the original Kamigawa block that cared about Spirits. Elder Pine of Jukai and Loam Dweller in particular seem to play nicely alongside your Spirit commander, especially if you’re running some creatures with changeling.
So, what do you think of Kodama of the West Tree? Is there anything you would play with it that I didn’t mention above?
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And lastly, I just want to say: let us love each other and stay healthy and happy.
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