Szarel, Genesis Shepherd Deck Tech

Szarel, Genesis Shepherd | Art by Matt Stewart

Lands is one of my favorite strategies in Commander. Something about the idea about taking a pile of the most commonly disregarded card type and weaponizing it against unsuspecting opponents just tickles my fancy. When Szarel, Genesis Shepherd was revealed, from Edge of Eternities, I knew I had to cover it.

A Crucible of Worlds that sits in the command zone and gives you access to Jund () cards is simply too sweet for this lands player to resist. In this deck tech, I'll tackle Szarel, Genesis Shepherd and find out if this commander can meet my sky-high expectations.

What Does Szarel, Genesis Shepherd Do?

Szarel, Genesis Shepherd is a 2/5 Insect Druid for five mana that grants the ability to play lands from the graveyard. That's not all, though! Whenever you sacrifice a nontoken permanent, Szarel puts a number of +1/+1 counters equal to its power onto a creature.

The standout interaction with this card is fetchlands, like Wooded Foothills or Bloodstained Mire, which can be sacrificed to trigger Szarel and then played from the graveyard to repeat the process.

Szarel is going to play very similarly to other lands commanders, like The Necrobloom, Azusa, Lost but Seeking, or even Radha, Heart of Keld (which I wrote about a while ago!). The combos that these decks look to assemble, like Dark Depths with Thespian's Stage, and the play patterns of using effects that recur lands from the graveyard paired with effects that grant additional land plays each turn are all pretty much the same.

The variations come in the form of different color restrictions and each commander serving a different role in that engine. The thing that makes Szarel, Genesis Shepherd stand out is that its the only commander that plays the role of a Crucible of Worlds from the command zone.

If I had to place Szarel, Genesis Shepherd into a definitive category, I'd call it a land-based aggro deck. This deck's plan is sticking Szarel on the board and stacking up counters on our creatures while playing multiple fetchlands from the graveyard each turn. Then, land-based combos and Landfall payoffs provide solid backup plans.

I'm incredibly excited to delve into this one.

Key Cards for Szarel, Genesis Shepherd

Since Szarel can't put +1/+1 counters on itself, it'll be critical to build a board of creatures that can maximize the benefit from Szarel's counters.

Halana and Alena, Partners was the first card that popped into my mind when Szarel was spoiled. It's perfect. You sacrifice a land, put Szarel's counters onto Halana and Alena, then at the beginning of combat Halana and Alena grows Szarel's power so your creatures can receive even more counters next turn.

Scythecat Cub and Bristly Bill, Spine Sower create a similar engine with Szarel as well. Scythecat Cub and Tifa Lockhart are both creatures with trample that can become lethal threats on a turn that you play multiple fetchlands.

One of my favorite parts of building around a given lands commander is getting to construct an engine that covers the functions that the commander can't.

Szarel is just the Crucible of Worlds effect, so the 99 will need to cover the other functions, like additional land plays. Azusa, Lost but Seeking and many cards like her are here to cover that. Recurring one fetchland every turn with Szarel's ability is a decent floor, but recurring two, three, or potentially even more than that each turn is where the real power is.

The Gitrog Monster provides an extra land play, a card draw engine, and a sacrifice outlet for lands that can't sacrifice themselves. That sacrifice outlet is also critical to maximize other forms of recursion, like Life from the Loam.

Channeling a Boseiju, Who Endures or cycling a Sheltered Thicket, replaying it with Szarel's ability, then sacrificing it to The Gitrog Monster and picking it back up with Life from the Loam to repeat the process is precisely the kind of incremental value I'm looking for in a lands deck.

The most important part of every lands deck is the lands! There are so many subtle interactions and tiny details in the mana base that fully explaining everything would take up more than one article, but I'll highlight a few that I think are important.

Field of the Dead can generate an absurd amount of tokens in a single turn when this deck's engine is firing on all cylinders. The Zombie tokens it generates are also excellent targets for Szarel's +1/+1 counters.

Urza's Saga is another token producer that's also able to tutor zero- and one-mana artifacts. I've included a small suite of targets to grab with Urza's Saga's third chapter ability, like Lavaspur Boots and The Ozolith, to ensure that the card has enough to do in games where you end up playing it multiple times.

How Does This Szarel, Genesis Shepherd Commander Deck Win?

The primary win condition for this deck is getting into the red zone with giant creatures. Going tall is much faster than going wide in a deck that can stack up +1/+1 counters on creatures with trample as much as this deck can.

The token that Dark Depths makes presents a fast clock that can swing in for lethal damage very quickly, especially when paired with additional pump effects like Jeska, Thrice Reborn or Xenagos, God of Revels. However, the real beauty of this deck is that literally any creature can become big enough to kill someone.

This deck isn't lacking options to go wide either! Scute Swarm in particular is known for getting out of hand quickly. Grindy games where lots of removal gets pointed at my biggest threats will often come down to several thousand Scute Swarm tokens finishing the job. I'm normally reluctant to include cards like Scute Swarm due to the logistical difficulties of representing board states with 3,000 tokens, but in this case I decided the upside was worth the potential inconvenience.

Finally, if all else fails, there's always the win condition of extinguishing your opponents' will to continue playing.

This deck is better than any other at recurring Strip Mine and Wasteland. I freely admit, Strip Mine locks are a guilty pleasure of mine and that definitely had an impact on my excitement to build Szarel. It may not be for every play group, but at the "anything goes" types of tables I play at, there is nothing I love more than firing off Wasteland after Wasteland at my opponents' unsuspecting lands.

Admittedly, I think this deck is likely winning via other means too quickly for this to come up, but the option makes me feel confident about the deck's capacity in longer games.

Szarel, Genesis Shepherd Commander Deck List

Conclusion

This deck is an absolute blast. Going forward, Szarel, Genesis Shepherd will be my automatic recommendation to anyone looking to build a land-centric strategy in Commander. I'd tentatively place this deck in Bracket 3 (Upgraded) with the caveat that cards like Wasteland and Strip Mine might not fly at every table and is something I'd recommend discussing with tables ahead of time.

As always, each play group is different.