One of the most powerful things to do in a game of Magic: the Gathering, particularly in Commander, is drawing a bunch of cards. One of the most fun things to do in a game of Magic, in any format, is making a bunch of tokens. Building a deck with The Locust God as the Commander will set you up to both make a lot of tokens and draw a lot of cards, making it both a powerful and fun deck to play.
Make no mistake; you cannot win the game simply by drawing cards (unless you’re planning a Laboratory Maniac-style win), nor can you win the game simply by making tokens. One of the primary goals of a Locust God deck should be to create synergy between the number of cards that are being drawn and the number of tokens that are being created. These two together can clear paths to victory with payoffs for a big turn in which you are able to draw a substantial amount of cards.
Because of this, it is important to get The Locust God onto the battlefield early and to protect him once he’s out. Unfortunately, with a 6-mana casting cost, that’s not easy. Fortunately, The Locust God’s mana cost includes 4 generic mana, meaning we get a lot of utility out of cards like Sol Ring, Worn Powerstone, Mind Stone, and other colorless-only mana artifacts. Even in the event that your Commander gets killed, The Locust God thankfully has a way to cheat the Command tax by returning to your hand at the beginning of the next end step any time he is destroyed.
The easiest ways to draw cards in multiples are effects that replace your hand in some way. There are four basic categories for these: “wheels” (based on Wheel of Fortune), which have one or more players discard their hand and draw seven new cards; “winds” (based on Winds of Change), which have one or more players discard or shuffle their hand into their library and draw the same number of cards they held originally; “twisters” (based on Timetwister), which have one or more players shuffle their hand and graveyard into their library and draw seven new cards; and “falls” (based on Windfall), which have each player discard their hand and draw the same number of cards as the greatest number of cards a player discarded this way. However, some of these effects can be too expensive for a budget. That being said, the absence of these effects should not preclude anyone from building The Locust God, as there are plenty of budget options available to build a powerful deck.
Budget $50 Deck Tech
Not including the basic lands and the Commander, this deck list comes out to $50.
There are a few ways to win with this deck. First is a 3-card combo that includes The Locust God, Reconnaissance Mission, and Breath of Fury, and it works like this: enchant an insect token with Breath of Fury and attack with any number of insects (but ideally, you want to have 2 or more to get maximum effect); Reconnaissance Mission will trigger, and you’ll draw a card for each attacking insect, thus making one insect for each attacking insect; as long as the enchanted insect dealt combat damage to your opponent, you can sacrifice it and attach Breath of Fury to another insect, which will untap your remaining insect(s) and grant you another combat phase. Repeat the process until you have either killed all your opponents or drawn most of your library.
There is also a 2-card combo that includes The Locust God and Sage of the Falls. This is a straightforward combo because when Sage of the Falls enters the battlefield, the triggered ability draws you a card, then you discard a card; when you draw, you’ll make an insect, thus triggering Sage of the Falls again, so you’ll draw and discard again; when you draw, you’ll make another insect, thus triggering Sage of the Falls yet again; and on and on the loop goes. Fortunately, Sage of the Falls’ trigger is a “may” ability, meaning you can choose to stop the loop at any time. For added spice and truly “infinite” insects, you can make this a 3-card combo by including Library of Leng, which will allow you to discard the cards to the top of your library, thus allowing you to draw the same card over and over again as you discard it to the top of your library each time. Then, just attack with an arbitrarily large number of insects for a one-shot kill. And with Impact Tremors on the battlefield, you don’t even need to go to combat; Impact Tremors will deal 1 damage to each of your opponents whenever an insect enters the battlefield.
That being said, there are plenty of ways to win without a combo. The basic goal, as mentioned in the introduction, is to get The Locust God out as early as possible so that you can start making tokens with cantrips like Opt and mass draw spells like Mind Spring and the wheel-type effects (Collective Defiance, Tolarian Winds, Shattered Perception, etc.) After that, there are a handful of anthem effects that will pump your tokens. The most powerful of these is Shared Animosity, pumping all your creatures by 1 power for each attacking creature that shares a creature type with it. There are also Favorable Winds and Glass of the Guildpact, which are basically just a +1/+1 stat boost to your insects (and also happen to buff The Locust God).
One note about the wheel-type effects is that it is almost always a better idea to hold onto them and wait until The Locust God is on the battlefield, but in a pinch, you can use them to replace your hand if your early draws aren’t great. That being said, the sheer randomness of the draws means that it can be a huge gamble to use one of those spells and end up with a worse hand than you previously had.
Because The Locust God has such a high converted mana cost, it can be important to protect him. As such, there are a whopping 11 counterspells in the deck. However, many of these counters have synergy with The Locust God because they will allow you to draw a card. If you somehow end up unable to cast The Locust God, there’s also Psychosis Crawler, which is great as a “General” for this Commander because Psychosis Crawler hits each of your opponents for one life point every time you draw a card.
Upgraded Deck Tech
I’ve made 16 changes to the budget deck, but though these changes are not many, they are substantial. For starters, I’ve added a new combo to the deck in the form of Ashnod’s Altar and Skullclamp. If you have both on the battlefield as well as at least one insect token and one generic mana, you can equip Skullclamp to your insect, then sacrifice the insect to Ashnod’s Altar in response to its own death trigger. This action will draw you two cards because the equipped creature died, thus creating two insects, and it will also generate two colorless mana, of which you can use one to equip Skullclamp to one of your two new insects and repeat the process.
This combo will also generate infinite colorless mana, but once you’ve drawn enough cards, you can usually find a way to win. Impact Tremors, Shared Animosity, and Cavalcade of Calamity each require just one colored man to cast, so if you draw any of them while you combo, you can drop it as a finisher.
Because this combo can be so lethal and effective, I’ve added Trinket Mage and Trophy Mage. Each of these three-mana creatures tutors for one of the combo pieces; Trinket Mage tuturs any one-mana artifact (Skullclamp), and Trophy Mage will tutor a three-mana artifact (Ashnod’s Altar); thus, you essentially have 2 copies of each combo piece in the deck.
Speaking of extra copies of combo cards, I’ve also added Bident of Thassa as a second copy of Reconnaissance Mission for the Breath of Fury combo lines. Blue and red are not great at tutoring enchantments, so it is smart to have as many copies of that effect as possible. I removed Subira, Tulzidi Caravanner from this build; the activation cost of not only two mana, but also discarding your hand, can be a high price to pay and can also make it difficult to plan out turns. You could choose to add Subira back if you like to live dangerously or if you just want that extra consistency for this specific combo.
A higher budget means we now also have room for a couple of better wheel abilities. The best wheels are the ones that can be activated each turn or are triggered abilities. If you get to wheel for free or every turn cycle, you can continually make insects and refill your hand. Jace’s Archivist allows you to cast Windfall for one blue mana each turn cycle—and you can do it at instant speed. There are also Arjun, the Shifting Flame and Mindmoil, two permanents that will each have you replace your hand (by putting your hand on bottom of your library and then drawing the same number of cards you originally held) whenever you cast a spell. Although these cards can make it difficult to sequence your turns, they can also each allow you to draw an insane number of cards, leading to some ridiculous turns in which you can generate double-digit insects without even really trying.
One weakness of this deck is cards like Ghostly Prison and Propaganda that tax you for attacking with creatures. I’ve added Throne of the God-Pharaoh as a hedge against these effects; if you can’t attack a specific player, your tapped insects will still deal damage to each player at the end of your turn.
The upgrades are rounded out by some improved mana rocks in the form of Sol Ring and Arcane Signet, an upgraded counterspell in Disallow, removal in Pongify, and land in Sulfur Falls.
Optimized Deck Tech
With a greater budget, you get access to an even wider array of combos and powerful spells. I’ve now added all of the Reconnaissance Mission effects in the form of Bident of Thassa as well as Coastal Piracy to up the redundancy.
I’ve also added one of the most powerful mana-generating enchantments in the game: Mana Echoes. With The Locust God out, and any number of Insects entering the battlefield at the same time from, say, Echo of Eons, you can generate an absurd amount of mana. The only problem might be finding a way to use it all, so why not toss in a Fireball? As above with the Breath of Fury combos, you could choose to add a few more X spells to the deck and some tutors for your combo pieces if you want to up the consistency and go all-in on infinite mana as a win condition. This deck already had yet another way to generate a lot of colorless mana, with the previously mentioned Ashnod’s Altar-Skullclamp combo and the tutors for those pieces.
That being said, this deck really isn’t an “infinite mana deck” in the traditional sense. This deck wants to draw a lot of cards, create a lot of hasty insects, and attack with them. Thankfully, an upgraded budget gives you access to even more payoffs for those behaviors in the form of Coat of Arms to buff your entire team of insects and Purphoros, God of the Forge to inflict damage on each of your opponents any time a creature enters the battlefield under your control. Purphoros is another way to get around Propaganda/Ghostly Prison effects.
There are more, and better, wheels in the deck now, as well. In fact, we get some of the best in this category with Echo of Eons, Molten Psyche, Winds of Change, Teferi’s Puzzle Box, and Whirlpool Warrior. One of the most powerful things this deck can do is simply drawing cards in bunches. If you are able to chain together a couple of wheels or mass draw spells in a turn, it can often be game over for your opponents, especially now with the increased volume and impact of the payoffs.
Rounding out the upgrades, we have some mana rocks (Chromatic Lantern, Though Vessel, and Mox Opal—the latter is quite an indulgence and not necessary for the deck, but should at least be an any-color mana artifact), lands (Fiery Islet and Reliquary Tower), counterspells (Dispel, which should be Swan Song, and Flusterstorm), card draw (Rhystic Sutdy), and removal (Rapid Hybridization, which is now more expensive than Pongify). I’ve also added a pet card in Jaya Ballard. Rummaging up to 3 cards per turn is very strong, as is her ability to make 3 red mana. You may never hti the ultimate, but you definitely don’t need to.
Alternatives
My deck is far from perfect, and there are other ways to build The Locust God to good use. One thing this deck lacks is pure consistency. Some higher-end mana artifacts like Mana Crypt and Mana Vault would certainly help get The Locust God onto the battlefield early, particularly because the deck is so reliant on landing an early Locust God.
More on the consistency side, the deck could benefit from being more focused in its ultimate win condition. There are many different directions you can take to win the game, whether it’s winning through combat and the aid of a stat booster like Shared Animosity or Coat of Arms, value from Purphoros and Impact Tremors, or one of the many combos (Breath of Fury/Reconnaissance Mission, Sage of the Falls with or without Library of Leng, Ashnod’s Altar/Skullclamp), and while many of the cards are good individually, some of them simply don’t work well on their own. Breath of Fury is one particular card that just doesn’t help a lot unless there’s also a Reconnaissance Mission effect. As powerful an effect as Mana Echoes is, I don’t take nearly enough advantage of all the extra mana.
Some of the less “consistent” cards in the deck are Mindmoil and Arjun, the Shifting Flame. While they will almost always generate a massive amount of insects, it is impossible to sequence your plays with these cards on the battlefield. These could be replaced by either X spells to take advantage of the mana you’ll generate from Mana Echoes or Ashnod’s Altar or by more ramp to get The Locust God into play more quickly.
If you want to go all-in for the Ashnod’s Altar/Skullclamp combo, Fabricate could be a tutor worth investing in. Three mana isn’t a great rate for a tutor, but it can grab any artifact in your deck, which would essentially make it a third copy of any combo piece you might need.
One area that could use improvement is the mana base. Steam Vents, Mana Confluence, City of Brass, Cascade Bluffs, and Reflecting Pool will all help fix the mana. Soon, Izzet will also have access to its very own Battlebond land in Training Center, and that will be an auto-include, as will the new “choose-land” from Zendikar Rising: Riverglide Pathway // Lavaglide Pathway.
These lists are intended as a starting point for ideas, and when it comes to building decks in Commander, it truly is “dealer’s choice,” but I hope these lists have provided a solid starting point for building and brewing with The Locust God.
MTG Frenzy 