Among the more benevolent deities of the plane of Theros is Karametra. Karametra is the white and green aligned god. She is the god of the harvest, agriculture, motherhood, fertility and community. Although she sounds like a pacifist, she has a much darker side. In ages past, her followers used blood rituals in their worship. Karametra, God of Harvests is a 6/7 for 5 mana; 3 generic, 1 green, and 1 white. Like all of the Theros gods, she has indestructible and your devotion to green and white must be 7 or higher for her to act as a creature. Her unique ability allows you to search your library for a Forest or a Plains card and put it into play tapped whenever you cast a creature spell. While this is a strong effect, it’s not enough for Karametra to actually end the game herself. Her 6 power is decent for inflicting commander damage, but that’s still at least 4 attacks against each opponent for that win condition. Green and white do have access to effects that can boost that power to the point where it would only take 1 attack against each opponent to finish them off with commander damage. This color combination is also notorious for generating tokens, but to trigger Karametra’s ability you have to cast a creature spell so token generators are less desirable for the deck; there are a few that this deck can still take advantage of, just remember that the tokens won’t trigger Karametra.
Before I get to the creatures and spells, I want to say that most of the lands in this deck should probably have the Forest or Plains typing. In fact, I would suggest that this deck should have more basic lands than most of the other commander decks out there if you want to utilize Karametra’s ramp ability, otherwise you’ll get to a point in the mid to late game where you can cast 3 or more creatures per turn, but you won’t be able to ramp. There are 4 dual lands that have both land types: Temple Garden, Savannah, Scattered Groves, and Canopy Vista. Not exactly enough for sufficient mana fixing. Fetch lands can help and you should certainly include Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds as well as Krosan Verge, which so far is the only card of its kind and I wish they would complete this cycle. If you want to include Windswept Heath and other fetch lands like it, you can if you have the money, if not, don’t worry about them. Since commander decks typically play 32-38 lands, I would say 26-30 should be basic lands and the rest of the land slots should be fetch lands or lands that fix your mana which can include lands that can tap for any color like Command Tower and Rupture Spire. Of course any artifacts that help fix your mana or ramp are welcome additions like Selesnya Signet or Solemn Simulacrum.
Now that I got that out of the way, let’s move on to some creatures. Courser of Kruphix plays very well with this deck. The biggest downside is playing with the top card of your library revealed, but keep in mind that you may also be shuffling your library quite often and if you don’t have a land in your hand to play, Courser of Kruphix allows you play lands from the top of your library. Also you’ll gain 1 life when a land comes into play which isn’t a terrible bonus, but since the starting life total is 40, it’s not that big of a bonus. However, keep in mind that it does not say that you can play additional lands; the one land per turn rule still applies. You can get around that rule with Dryad of the Ilysian Grove which also has the ability to turn all of your lands into dual lands. This only affects your lands in play, not the ones in your library, so you can’t grab something like your Command Tower with Karametra’s ability. Although the lands you get with Karametra enter tapped, Lotus Cobra can get you the mana from them right away with its landfall trigger. Speaking of landfall, two creatures that I think would be worth the inclusion are Scute Swarm and Rampaging Baloths. Each one creates a token when a land comes into play. As I said earlier, the creatures need to be cast to trigger Karametra, God of Harvests, but creating 4/4 beasts or copies of a creature that makes more copies of itself is still some good value.
Beast Whisperer is another card that works great with this deck. When you cast a creature spell, you now ramp and draw a card. The Great Henge also adds card draw, but the creature also gets a +1/+1 counter and the artifact can tap to generate 2 mana and gain you 2 life. Now to get some of these triggers often enough, you want to have a relatively low creature curve, maybe around 3 mana or less for the majority of the deck. I mean look at the creatures curve so far. The biggest is Rampaging Baloths at 6 mana followed by Beast Whisperer at 4. The more creatures you can cast, the better and the more value they can add by themselves, the better. Fierce Empath can be very helpful and I’ll get to why in a moment. Tireless Tracker is good addition. I’d also suggest any Elves that are not mana dorks but can still help fix your mana like Farhaven Elf.
As for ending the game, Overrun effects like, well, Overrun are good. I like Craterhoof Behemoth personally since it grants trample as well as a massive +X/+X to all of your creatures where X is the number of creatures you control. You can also pull it out of the library with Fierce Empath. Blackblade Reforged gives the equipped creature +1/+1 for each land you control. In Karametra’s hands, one unblocked attack could spell the end for an opponent. Let’s not forget Beastmaster Ascension giving +5/+5 to your creatures and combined with the +3/+3 from Collective Blessing, that makes your tiny 1/1 creatures into massive 9/9 creatures.
Most of the cards I have covered so far have been green. Even though this deck is two colors, white fulfills more of a supportive role here. What white lacks in generating card advantage, it makes up for with its removal. Wrath of God, Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, Return to Dust, and Generous Gift should be enough to get you started.
Landfall with ramp can be very powerful as we saw in Standard right after Zendikar Rising was released. Since we returned to the plane for a third time, there are now 44 cards that have the landfall ability that can be played in this deck and I barely touched on them. Karametra, God of Harvests is one of the best commanders for this strategy since most of the landfall cards are creatures and she lets you ramp whenever you play a creature. Her ability is not necessarily strong on its own, but do not underestimate it. That wraps up Karametra, God of Harvests, god number 7 of the original 15 from Theros. Which god do you want to see next that I have not covered yet or what commander should I cover once this series is over? Let me know in the comments down below.