This is my idea of a Behemoth Engine deck. It uses the amazing
Trench Behemoth
with a few other cards to create an infinite engine! I did not find this combo listed on T/O anywhere and I also did not find any decks taking advantage of it so I thought I would post this one.
The core is using this combo with any land that does not enter play tapped: Retreat to Coralhelm + Trench Behemoth + Walking Atlas
or
Retreat to Coralhelm + Sakura-Tribe Scout + Trench Behemoth
or
Retreat to Coralhelm + Skyshroud Ranger + Trench Behemoth
.
This creates an infinite goad, infinite landfall and infinite mana combo. Combined with the other cards in the deck it also provides infinite creature production, infinite draw, infinite storm count due to being able to cast any instant or sorcery an infinite amount of times.
When
Mystic Sanctuary
combined with three or more islands in play is used with this Behemoth Engine you get, along with the other infinite things, endless recursion of any instant or sorcery to get it out of the yard and on top of your library. Then all you need to do is add in cards like
Treasure Trove
and combined with the engine will let you cast any instant or sorcery an infinite amount of times.
While looking up cards for this deck, i realized there are quite a few cards like
Treasure Trove
that can take advantage of infinite blue mana to draw you cards. The following cards all work in place of
Treasure Trove
;
Mystic Archaeologist
,
Soul of Ravnica
expensive and not very efficient but can provide an alt wincon,
Spectral Sailor
can be used the turn you play it,
Sphinx of Magosi
similar to
Soul of Ravnica
and can gain infinite counters,
Kefnet the Mindful
, and
Faerie Formation
which also gains infinite faerie tokens while drawing. Any of these can be used to draw cards once you bring the engine online. Alternately, you can use buyback or replicate to draw instead with cards like
Whispers of the Muse
or
Train of Thought
. These cards will raise storm counts if you want to build a deck in that direction. For this deck I am going to go with
Faerie Formation
and
Kefnet the Mindful
. They are slow but can provide other ways to win if your engine does not come online.
Once you get infinite mana and infinite card draw, having something like
Ominous Seas
in play will allow you to go wide with tons of Krakens. I put copies of
Crawling Barrens
in the deck as another sink for your mana that lets it build counters and at any time you can choose to swing with it.
Because of infinite landfall triggers you can play cards like
Roil Elemental
and just take everyone's creatures to win that way as well. Another good one is
Willbreaker
for when your engine goes off because the
Trench Behemoth
's goad-like ability can target every creature. Because of
Mystic Sanctuary
I am going to try
Sakashima's Will
instead. It can get you hexproof creatures because it does not target them. And it's other ability will basically let you turn all your creatures into whatever you want that's non-legendary. And it lives in your hand, not on the battlefield where the other cards can get destroyed. If you play against decks with a lot of planeswalkers you can swap the
Sakashima's Will
for
Mass Manipulation
which will grab them along with all of the creatures.
Now that the engine and win conditions are out of the way, I wanted to mention some of the other cards in the deck that help the deck strategy happen or provide value to the deck.
This card
Words of Wind
will help you win in spectacular fashion and probably get you punched in the face. With it in play, you can spend 1 colorless, skip your next draw and force every player to put a permanent back in their hand. With this deck's Behemoth Engine going, you can just return a land to your hand while everyone else struggles with deciding what to bounce of their own. Then you just put the land you returned back into play and keep repeating this process until everyone else in the game has 0 permanents in play. And all you had to do was keep recurring one of your lands. Then just smash face with whatever you have handy.
Another kind of similar option are copies of
Verity Circle
. Not only can this net you some draws in the early game, once your Behemoth Engine happens you can tap every non-flyer on the table that is not yours. Not quite as flashy as the
Words of Wind
but may provide better value to the deck.
Speaking Of
Walking Atlas
; There is a whole tribe that can take ruinous advantage of the ability to keep putting your lands back into play. Moonfolk have many creatures that can bounce your lands to provide a benefit to you. For this particular deck, I am avoiding using many of the Moonfolk to focus more on an explosive combo win and Krakens specifically for Behemoth flavor. However, if your meta has a lot of removal and hate, then you should make room for at least a couple copies of
Soratami Rainshaper
. Especially if you build a version of this that has more creatures besides the combo enablers. The
Trench Behemoth
has built in protection so you don't need it for that but you may find yourself losing other key creatures and the Rainshaper provides what you need. And Moonfolk are sexy!
So if you want to go that angle or would like to do a Commander deck using this combo, may I suggest checking this deck out for Moonfolk and related cards: Commander Patron of the Moon. You can combine the Behemoth Engine and it's support cards into a Moonfolk-based commander deck like this one.
Another Moonfolk to add to the deck is
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
. She helps the deck with card advantage and damage mitigation and her ultimate turns your entire deck into the
Mystic Sanctuary
+ Draw engine. It is not necessary to the deck but adds a lot of value. And did I mention, Moonfolk are sexy?
Lastly, the
Trench Behemoth
has a very expensive mana cost. So you need to cheat it out to get your Behemoth Engine going. You can go the
Polymorph
route or similar ways to it. Or you can try out doing it with this card:
Arcane Artisan
. I just discovered this card today while looking for ways to get my Kraken out and it may just be a solid way to do it. The
Trench Behemoth
does not need haste since it does not have an activated ability and you were not really ever planning on attacking with it. And once your Behemoth Engine happens, you can draw other copies of the Kraken if you need it.
Still a work in progress. I will add more utility and more interaction before testing the deck.
