Garth One-Eye Old-Border Commander Deck Tech

Garth One-Eye | Art by Micah Epstein

Greetings and salutations everyone, and welcome to our lair of hot cards in the midst of this scorching Summer. I'm Arnaud, and I'm thrilled to take you on a nostalgia trip down memory lane, back to when things were much, much simpler.

As you may have noticed, this is no regular Trim. In this calm period of relaxing holidays, I wanted to treat you with something a bit different, as I've used to do in the past few years. This time, I'd like to build something around Garth One-Eye.

For those of you who are too young to remember, a quick recap. Garth was the main character of the first ever official MtG novel: Arena, by William R. Forstchen. Fun fact, Garth Arena is also a location in Texas hosting large events. But that's got nothing to do with our topic at hand.

I have fond memories of that book for a couple of reasons. First, young player me had loved that simple intrigue, featuring Hill Giants, Woolly Mammoths and a Lord of the Pit.

Second, Wizards had included a bulletin you could send over to get an exclusive card back then: a Mana Crypt. Which of course stupid young me never got around to send.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to build something around this Madeleine de Proust. Of course, you know me, I can't build anything without resorting to a challenge of sorts.

So this is the task I'm laying out: building a Garth One-Eye deck viable enough to be playable in Bracket 2, using exclusively old cards, published before 8th Edition and its border shift. I'll try keeping budget to a minimum, but bear in mind a lot of these cards are appealing to collectors and therefore go for a premium.

I debated for a while whether to include the recently published new "old-bordered" cards, but it felt like cheating. So let's boot the time machine and plunge into the past.

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Back to the Future

So, where do you start when you wish to achieve such an endeavor?

Volume shouldn't be too much of an issue, as there were 5,594 cards published up to Legions. More than enough to suit our purpose.

The real question is what to actually do with them, and how do you achieve victory with that old stuff?

As usual, let's focus first on the veggies.

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Garden of Greens

Given that Garth can be quite mana intensive, between its casting cost and its suite of magicks, I believe we'll need a strong ramp package, ideally at least 14 spells, to make sure we don't run out of mana.

From that initial list, there are 52 cards that read "search" and "land" in their text, a lot of which are fetches, and others that don't actually go look for lands at all (I see you Bog Glider). There's also a bunch of cheap Auras that increase the amount of mana provided by a single land.

This hints at a strong green base, with a significantly large basic lands base, as most spells from that era are somewhat limited in the options they provide.

After careful consideration, I'm including the following:

Explosive Vegetation	Mind Stone	Skyshroud Claim
Fellwar Stone	Mirari's Wake	Utopia Tree
Fertile Ground	One with Nature	Wild Growth
Gaea's Balance	Quirion Explorer	Yavimaya Elder
Harrow	Rampant Growth

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Keeping a Strong Hand

Time to address draw. While Garth has the courtesy of providing some from the command zone, we'll need some more help if we're to succeed in keeping the gas running.

In this field and for that era, the decent options are sadly few and far between, or too expensive for our budget. Braingeyser for instance is close to $20 at the time of writing.

And while there are indeed 399 cards including the word "draw" on them, they are, for the most part, quite bad. Therefore get ready for what's going to look like one of the most ragtag draw packages ever included in Commander.

Arcanis the Omnipotent	Concentrate	Rush of Knowledge
Archivist	Curiosity	Shadowmage Infiltrator
Bequeathal	Deep Analysis	Stroke of Genius
Brainstorm	Greed
Coastal Piracy	Opportunity

Trust me, it's not as bad as it could have been, not by a mile.

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Removing Pesky Threats

Garth has our ground somewhat covered, as it can cast Terror in a pinch. Will this be enough? No, not remotely close.

Thankfully the old times had an abundance of decent removal spells that we can put to good use. Let's add the following:

Removal

Wipes

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Dark Banishing	Pernicious Deed
Exile	Wrath of God
Fireball
Flametongue Kavu
Swords to Plowshares
Terminate

I really wanted to include the original Vindicate, but the card currently runs for $15, way above our budget.

We're currently at 37 cards in the list, and it's now time to have some fun.

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AAAAAAADVENTURE TIME!!!

Let's assume we'll be adding around 38 lands in the end. Now that the veggies are out of the way, this leaves us 26 spots to have fun with.

I'll immediately take some of those to play some of the most iconic cards of these past times. Say hello to:

Are these the best cards ever? No. Will they make the table smile? You bet they will.

I'm also adding the five Dragon legends from Invasion.

I had initially considered bringing the original Elder Dragons to the fray, but let's face it: they cost a lot and require a really annoying upkeep.

To these, I'll add five beaters that have all been part of the all-stars at some point. Bad as they may seem, they still pack a punch.

Spiritmonger is one of my favorite pet cards. Back in the early 2000s it used to wreak havoc on Legacy tables. While it may seem underwhelming by today's standards, getting a 6/6 for five mana was no joke back then, let alone with all of those keywords.

Sure, the list looks more and more like a random pile of cards, but these cards will kill!

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Desserts and Fun Trinkets

There are still 12 spots left to fill, so let's gather some interactive outlets.

First, I'll add three of the worst Blink/Flicker effects. Don't blame me, blame the game; the best ones all come from the modern era.

Say hello to:

Aside from Liberate, they don't do much, they don't have flash and they require some massive hoops to work. But they're as close as you'll get to a solution to reset your commander.

Next, I think we'll all agree survival is going to be tricky. So let's make sure we can stay alive a bit more:

I'll say it, and I'll say it again: Fog effects are wildly underrated in commander, and it's about time people played more of them.

I've also added the mother of all Circles of Protection. It's flexible, and will prevent huge amounts of damage as long as you have the mana to activate it.

I had also considered Story Circle but there simply aren't enough white mana sources to make it viable. Sad.

Also, let's add some ways to use our commander multiple times.

And we're done! I give you, the somewhat viable-ish...

Garth One-Eye Old-Border Commander Deck List

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A Few Words From an Old Geezer

I hope you had fun adventuring in the land of the crumbling, the lairs of old, and the ancient dwellings.

Do you see anything worthy of being included to this peculiar brew? Any blatant omissions?

I'm looking forward to reading your comments, and I'll see you in two weeks!

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