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Eshki, Temur’s Roar was the face commander ofMagic: The Gathering’sTemur Roar preconstructed deck. In the lore, Eshki is the leader of the Temur clan on Tarkir alongside the Spirit Dragon Ureni. The power of Eshki in the world of Magic translates to its card, having a fantastic effect to make for a fantastic Temur (green/blue/red) commander.
An Eshki, Temur’s Roar deck is best built as a Stompy deck (a deck that plays a ton of creatures with high power). This enables both Eshki’s own effect while flooding the battlefield with a ton of powerful creatures to swing in for a ton of damage.
Surrak and Goreclaw
Terror of the Peaks
Rhythm of the Wild
Shadow in the Warp
x7 Forest
x4 Island
x6 Mountain
Stormcarved Coast
Sulfur Falls
The decklistcontains one planeswalker, 32 creatures, six sorceries, eight instants, eight artifacts, ten enchantments,and34 lands. Since the deck is heavily creature-focused, they make up most of the deck, while the rest is mostly support cards for creatures and counters.
Key Cards
Eshki, Temur’s Roar
The commander of the deck, Eshki, Temur’s Roar is a creature thatgrows with every creature spell you cast(assuming it has more than four power). This slowly turns it into a massive threat as it starts getting loaded with counters, asmost of the creatures in the deck have more than four power.
Eshki will trigger both effects if a creature has six or more power, as it will meet the criteria for both of them.
Eshki’s first effect plays into its second one, asits power will eventually cause big burn damage when you cast creatures with six or more power. This makes it even easier to close out games, especially if Eshki managed to stick around with a ton of counters on it (made easier with The Ozolith if it ever gets removed).
Animar, Soul Of Elements
Yourcreatures tend to have high casting costs, as most creature that have high power do. This is where Animar, Soul of Elements helps out, as it candiscount all your creature spells equal to its +1/+1 counters.
Animar, Soul of Elementsacts as a backup commander for the deck. It has a similar effect to Eshki, but triggers off of any creature instead of ones with four or more power. It trades the burn damage on Eshki for general creature discounts, allowing you to cast creatures for far cheaper than normal.
The Ozolith
The deckhas a ton of different ways to put counters on creatures. In some cases, it’s the creatures themselves, while other cards can stick them on your creatures. That combined with counter doublers leads to many +1/+1 counters getting spread around your battlefield.
The Ozolith is a great artifactthathelps to ensure those counters stick around,even if those creatures get removed. In some cases,you want your creatures with counters on them to dieso that you can move them to The Ozolith then onto Eshki so it can deal even more burn damage with it.
Selvala, Heart Of The Wilds
Selvala, Heart of the Wilds is a staple of decks that play large creatures,acting as the best mana dork available for Stompy deckslike Eshki. The amount of mana it can tap for is equal to the highest power, soit will at bare minimum tap for two manasince it counts itself.
Selvala is alsoa part of an infinite combo with Temur Sabertooth and any permanent that grants a creature haste. This can lead to infinite mana and, in some cases, win the game if you have the right combination of permanents on the battlefield. Here is how the combo works.
Prerequisites: Temur Sabertooth, Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, and any permanent that gives a creature haste. One green mana available. One creature with seven or more power on the battlefield. The combo will work if you have a creature with six power, but you will not get infinite mana.
Step 1: Activate Selvala for one green mana, adding at least four green mana and three mana in any color.
Step 2: Activate Temur Sabertooth, bouncing Selvala back to hand.
Step 3: Recast Selvala. The haste-granting permanent will allow you to use its effect right away.
Step 4: Repeat steps 1-3.
Results: Infinite colored mana, infinite cast triggers, infinite enter the battlefield triggers, infinite burn damage if Terror of the Peaks is on the battlefield.
How To Play The Deck
An Eshki, Temur’s Roar Commander deckwants you to constantly be casting creatures with high power,triggering Eshki’s abilities while having a ton of threats on your battlefield. These threats become even stronger when you give them haste with cards like Rhythm of the Wild, Temur Ascendancy, or Surrak and Goreclaw on the battlefield.
The deck has multiple permanents that put +1/+1 counters on your permanents, so cards such as Ozolith, the Shattered Spire, Branching Evolution, and Hardened Scales are very helpful in making your creatures even more threatening faster. So make sure to get them down early.
Youwant to get mana dorks on the battlefield as quickly as possible. The mana curve of an Eshki Temur Roar deck is rather high, so cards like Gwenna, Eyes of Gaea and Selvala, Heart of the Wilds are especially strong since they’ll enable you to generate more mana than they cost to cast. Permanents that discount creatures are great to so you can cast multiple in a turn.
Theprimary win condition of the deck is winning through combat. Your creatures have high stats, and plenty of ways togive all of your creatures trample. This makes it easy to run over your opponents' creatures to get in for guaranteed damage. Games can go even quicker with haste enablers. On rarer occasions,you can win through burn damageboth with Eshki and Terror of the Peaks.
Thebiggest downside of the deck is its speed. Since your creatures tend to cost a lot of mana, it can take a few turns to set up. As such, you’llbe exposed to attacks early in the game, so you should expect to take some damage. Luckily, once you are set up you can quickly turn the game around, anddeal large amounts of burst damageto even things out.
