Here's my Mayael list that I run in my competitive meta. I don't own any of the original dual lands, but other than that I've spent a lot of time tweaking this list to be as competitive as possible. There's many mana accelerants in the deck to allow me to hard cast the fatties, if needed. Just about every fatty in the deck doubles as a beater and some other effect. As a result, I've listed them in their respective categories.

Here's the deck. Fatties that can be cheated with Mayael are marked with an *.

General
1 Mayael the Anima

Mayael's BFF
1 Seedborn Muse

Ramp
1 Mana Crypt
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Sol Ring
1 Birds of Paradise - Nice Green Sun's Zenith target
1 Farseek
1 Bloom Tender - Nice Green Sun's Zenith target
1 Talisman of Impulse
1 Talisman of Unity
1 Wood Elves
1 Cultivate
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Coalition Relic
1 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Eternal Dragon* - Fatty that can be cycled for a Shockland.
1 Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger* - My meta is cuttthroat, so dick cards like this are ok.

Card Draw/Quality
1 Sylvan Tutor - while this an wordly tutor are usually card disadvantage, they allow me to guarnatee a hit with Mayael
1 Worldly Tutor
1 Sensei's Divining Top - Allows me to Peek and see if Mayael may miss
1 Scroll Rack - Amazing in this deck
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Tooth and Nail
1 Sylvan Library
1 Greater Good
1 Regal Force*
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth*
1 Sun Titan*
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Eternal Witness
1 Soul of the Harvest*
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter

Removal
1 Aura Shards
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Bogardan Hellkite*
1 Return to Dust
1 Scourge of Kher Ridges* - Amazing with Vigor out.
1 Woodfall Primus*
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Admonition Angel*
1 Terastodon*
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre*
1 Steel Hellkite*
1 Beast Within
1 Austere Command
1 Balefire Dragon*
1 Terminus

Equipment Package
1 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Lightning Greaves

Distruption
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Angelic Arbiter
1 Blazing Archon

Protection
1 Spearbreaker Behemoth
1 Vigor
1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
1 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight

Other Fatties
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Avenger of Zendikar
1 Hellkite Charger

Lands
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Winding Canyons
1 Temple of the False God
1 Petrified Field
1 Strip Mine
1 City of Brass
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Selesnya Sanctuary
1 Temple Garden
1 Stomping Ground
1 Vesuva
1 Dryad Arbor - Nice Green Sun's Zenith target
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Mistveil Plains
1 Wooded Bastion
1 Rugged Prairie
1 Jungle Shrine
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Arid Mesa
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Plains
2 Mountain
4 Forest
1 Sunpetal Grove
1 Krosan Verge
1 Mosswort Bridge
1 Command Tower
1 Clifftop Retreat
1 Kessig Wolf Run

No Decimate or Lurking Predators?

I'd replace Ancient Grudge with Into the Core.

I still think it's nuts how much ramp you run. But I'm surprised you're not running Skyshroud Claim

I don't run Decimate because I don't like the restrictions of needing every permanent type to cast it. I cut Lurking Predators a long time ago because it doesn't do anything by itself, and I hated the conflict of having something decent on top when the player to my left played and then having to choose whether to leave it there or wheel around the table in the hopes that I'd get something good. Maybe things would be different now with SDT and Scroll Rack in the deck, but I don't like it.


I do like the exile effect of Into the Core, but I like the cheaper cost of AG, especially with such a mana hungry deck.

[/quote]
At 4CMC it's more expensive than I want. The only thing I have at 4 CMC is Oracle of Mul Daya, but that's only because she is repetitive and helps dump lands in my hand. Once I hit 4 mana, I'm hoping to do a lot more. You're right though - it is a lot of ramp, but it's completely necessary or else I'd be dead before I was even able to do anything.

Lurking Predators actually does a whole lot on its own. It gives you free creatures whenever they play spells. That's pretty sweet. I'm not going to count the creatures, but it looks like you have very good odds.

You could be running Kiki-Jiki + Village Bell-Ringer for the cheesy win off Tooth and Nail.

I count 23 fatties (not all are marked), which gives you a chance of about 25% for missing with Mayael (viewtopic.php?p=19455#p19455). You will improve this with land fetching and Top variants, but this still seems dangerously low. I'd certainly aim to play a couple more. Maybe just a few more land fetchers like Wirewood Guardian or the surprisingly absent Krosan Tusker so that early game you help improve your mana and late game you help improve your hit chance?

Mirri's Guile is another good top effect. Defense of the Heart might be nice to consider. There is no removal I would play over Rout and Hallowed Burial should also be worth considering. There is a lot in a Mayael deck that works favorably with Rings of Brightheart.

In a competitive meta I think you might consider going the cheap fatties route. Dropping a lot of them quickly, charging people, using Mayael to rebuild after mass removal. Not sure it's a better approach than your current one, but have you considered it?

pi, for the longest time I fought to keep my fatty count around 27, but as an experiment I decided to listen to my playgroup and replace some fatties with effects that tweak the top of my deck. I haven't been able to play in a while but it has worked out better than I would have hoped for. Between all of the ramp thinning out the deck, and my deck manipulation, it's worked out well, so I'm happy. As you know, between land, ramp, and fatties, there isn't a lot of space in the deck, but I like how it's worked out for me.

I cut Krosan Tusker because it wasn't good enough for me. I prefer real ramp over it only run Eternal Dragon as a comparable creature.

I know you like the wrath version of the deck, but it hasn't been necessary here based on the spew of the deck to throw out disgusting creatures.

Thanks for the feedback.

I must have been unclear, sorry, I meant that you could go for a beatdown version, let others play the mass removal if they want to stop you. Cards like Woolly Thoctar, Hunted Lammasu and Emperor Crocodile that all have a pretty good power to mana ratio. A Mayael deck like that could come out of the gates pretty quickly and Mayael would make sure you don't run out of threats. I'm not sure there is a workable strategy there, but I've always thought there might be a reasonable Mayael build in that direction.

I would play the Tusker over the Dragon at least.

Have you kept track of how often you miss?

...Emperor Crocodile seems extremely dubious in a format where you can play cards like Rumbling Slum, Spellbreaker Behemoth, Deadbridge Goliath, Mycoid Shepherd, and Cliffrunner Behemoth.

But Emperor Crocodile is a boss.

I see what you're saying. Unfortunately, because I have so many decks (currently 21 in paper) and I don't get to play in the competitive meta often enough, I don't get to play this deck as much as I'd like, but since the reduction of fatties to the current number (with the addition of Scroll Rack (and tutors for it), Worldly Tutor, etc), the deck has been way more powerful.

I'm not sure about adding lower CMC creatures that aren't nearly as powerful as the ones in the deck now, only because I'm afraid of dropping lackluster creatures when people have 8+ mana. I cut lots of lackluster 4-5 CMC creatures from the build a while ago because they didn't 'do enough'. With the amount of ramp I have, I hard cast a surprising number of these guys (or Tooth and Nail) fairly early - sometimes I don't even need Mayael.


Perhaps. I do like that the Dragon has flying, which is pretty key, and that it can search for my shocklands. I also admit bias since I paid $5 or so for the Dragon, so I'm motivated to play it. :p


This is a big joke in my group ever since cutting down the number of fatties. As I mentioned, I had something like 28 fatties in there at one time, and was happy. Of course I still whiffed sometimes, but it worked well enough. Since I've dropped the current amount I've still whiffed, but it hasn't been as bad as I'd have hoped. Again, I may have a smallish sample size on the number of games played with the current build (15 or so).

For my part, I like the dragon a lot better than the Tusker, since it cycles cheaper, has flying (very relevant), and can still fetch all three colors via shocklands. But I'd play both, of course.

I took out Krosan Tusker for Explosive Vegetation, b/c Krosan Tusker doesn't actually ramp, he just helps you not miss land drops but I have 40 lands so that rarely happens anyway and I don't need a random card from my deck.

I like your mayael list. It's very similar to mine

One thing that surprises me though is the absence of Sigarda, Host of Herons. Are there no sacrifice effects in your meta? I found that sacrificing my creatures is a big weakness for my deck. Anyway that was my 2 cents.

Thanks! Do you also run few fatties?T

No Sigarda because There aren't many sacrifice effects in my meta. I like her as a cheap fatty but I also don't own one.

I run a total count of 19 fatties and the deck works pretty well due to tutors, library shuffling and card filtering. If you're looking for ideas my list is in my sig