Deck Forge: Hazezon, Shaper of Sand

Bennie Smith • November 14, 2024

Deckbuilding
(Hazezon, Shaper of Sand || art by Bryan Sola)

Building a Deck is Just the First Step

Hello, and welcome to Deck Forge! In this series I'll be choosing a cool Commander deck built by a Magic creator - or occasionally my own - and compare it to the example decklist that's generated by EDHREC through analyzing all the many builds for that commander in the deck database. Checking out the differences, and similarities, provides insight into what makes these decks tick and hopefully highlights some fun card choices along the way!

All this is easy due to the really cool deck comparison feature from Archidekt! I first did this a couple years ago when I compared my signature Grothama, All-Devouring Commander deck to the sample decklist generated by EDHREC.

Leveling Up: Commander Deck Comparisons

Simply generate the sample decklist for the commander you want to compare, import it into Archidekt, and click on the deck comparison button on the upper right hand corner of the deck you want to compare against.

To kick off the Deck Forge series, I chose the Hazezon: Desert Power deck put together by Rachel Weeks. Rachel is part of the Command Zone/Game Knights team, was a member of the Commander Advisory Group, and is now part of the new Wizards of the Coast's Commander Format Panel. 

If you watch Rachel on her videos or follow her on Twitter, you'll know she's a smart and creative deckbuilder, so be sure to follow her decks on Archidekt! I picked her Hazezon deck in part because I have my own Hazezon, Shaper of Sand deck, which got a big boost from all the fun Desert synergies from Outlaws of Thunder Junction. Let's throw her list into the forge with the heat of 7,500 Hazezon decks from EDHREC and see what we can learn.

 

In Both Decks: 61%

Of course, each deck has Hazezon, Shaper of Sand in the command zone. Both decks share about 61% of the same cards, which is not surprising considering Hazezon is looking specifically for Desert lands to deploy to the battlefield and ways for Deserts to be in the graveyard so you can play them with Hazezon's ability. Since Desert shenanigans are also land shenanigans, we'll want Landfall triggers and other effects that care about lands. Lastly, since Hazezon generates two 1/1 Sand Warrior tokens with each trigger, we'll want to take advantage of token synergies too. Let's take a look:

Land Synergies

Felidar Retreat and Lotus Cobra provide excellent Landfall triggers that play perfectly in this deck. Felidar Retreat in particular can help make more token creatures or boost your team when you've gone wide enough and want to hit hard. 

Ancient Greenwarden provides a backup to Hazezon's ability to let you play Deserts from the graveyard, but more importantly it gives you extra triggers from lands entering the battlefield, and having a big body with reach isn't a bad thing either!

Cards like Exploration and Wayward Swordtooth really shine here since playing multiple Deserts in a turn gives you multiple Hazezon triggers. Dryad of the Ilysian Grove also fixes your colors, which is quite helpful in a three-color deck. 

Nahiri's Lithoforming was made for this deck, especially with your commander on the battlefield, letting you sacrifice X Deserts and then playing them again out of the graveyard with Hazezon.

Deserts

There are currently 37 different Desert cards in the Commander card pool, so it's a little strange there are only 17 Deserts in common between the two decks. Granted, in a three-color deck you don't want too many colorless sources of mana, especially if you want to be able to cast your commander relatively early in the game, so you'll mostly want Deserts that tap for colored mana and only the very best of the colorless Deserts, and while I wouldn't consider Desert one of the best colorless Desert, it is the original Desert, so it certainly deserves a slot.

Desert Synergy

These are some great support cards for Desert strategies, especially Yuma, Proud Protector, which generates sizeable 4/2 token creatures and can occasionally draw some extra cards. Hour of Promise and Map the Frontier are excellent land ramp spells that can specifically search up Desert lands, and Hour will often bring along two Zombie tokens for your troubles.

Token Synergies

Impact Tremors is great in token-heavy decks, slowly pinging away at opponents' life totals in a way that seems minor (it's only a point each time, after all), but that can really add up. Rumor Gatherer's card draw ability lines up perfectly with Hazezon's ability to create two Sand Warrior tokens at a time, and Jetmir, Nexus of Revels is the ultimate token creature booster, giving you a permanent army boost for half the mana of Craterhoof Behemoth. 

Removal & Card Draw

Most of these are to be expected, especially Skullclamp since you'll have no shortage of 1/1 creatures to 'clamp and draw two cards. I'm a little surprised to see Shamanic Revelation in both decks since it's not near the top of the best choices for card drawing in green, but it does work with token creatures unlike Guardian Project or The Great Henge. Maybe I should put one in my Hazezon deck!

Lands

For completeness sake, here are the non-Desert lands common to both decks. 

In Rachel's Deck, not Example Deck

I wanted to call out Annie Joins Up as some nice spicy tech in Rachel's deck. It provides a decent creature removal spell, then sticks around to give you more Hazezon triggers.

Lands Synergies

Dire-Strain Rampage is another spicy card in Rachel's deck: it's flexible removal for an artifact, enchantment, or land, and with flashback it can do it all over again. There's also the big brain move where you can destroy your own Desert, search up two basic lands and put them on the battlefield, then play the sacrificed Desert from the graveyard with Hazezon.

Cosmic Intervention is a great set-up card for a big turn, so you'd definitely want to foretell it quickly to await the right cards. When you have a way to sacrifice multiple lands in a turn (say, by activating Greater Gargadon while it's suspended), you'll be able to get them back, along with any other permanent that ended up in the graveyard, during the next end step. 

Akki Scrapchomper is a card I didn't even know existed, but it does good work here sacrificing a Desert to draw a card so you can replay the Desert with Hazezon. And speaking of drawing cards, Horn of Greed has any player draw a card whenever they play a land, but in a Hazezon deck you'll draw a lot more cards than most decks. Just be careful you don't deck yourself along the way by drawing too much!

Moraug, Fury of Akoum is often found in Landfall strategies, but I think it does a lot of heavy lifting here when your horde of Sand Warriors and other creatures are ready to go on attack, especially if you can generate multiple Landfall triggers. 

Token Synergies

Rachel's token synergy choices diverge from the example deck, but I like what she's got cooking here. Mondrak, Glory Dominus and Parallel Lives increase the pace of Sand Warrior deployment, and Purphoros, God of the Forge is an indestructible source of significant damage to each opponent in a deck that can spit out multiple token creatures each turn. And don't forget it can boost your creatures with the activated ability! Speaking of boosting your creatures, Mercadia's Downfall is a surprise combat trick that can turn your 1/1 horde into a fearsome attack force depending on how greedy your opponents' mana bases are.

Rite of Harmony is another fantastic card-drawing choice in this sort of deck, and it's even better because it has flashback to let you get that refuel turn again later. 

Removal

I'm surprised that Blasphemous Act and Hull Breach aren't in the example deck because they seem like staples in any Commander deck with these colors. March of Souls is an interesting choice, wiping the battlefield of creatures and replacing them with 1/1 flying Spirits. I'm guessing that Rachel is figuring her deck is better set to break the symmetry of the effect with ways to boost your army and also to generate more tokens. 

Goblin Bombardment is a great complement to Impact Tremors and Purphoros, God of the Forge, potentially stacking up enough small packets of damage to take down an opponent. 

Interaction & Card Draw

I would have expected to see something like Heroic Intervention to protect your battlefield from a sweeper effect, but Rachel takes advantage of having white available and using Galadriel's Dismissal and Teferi's Protection to phase out your creatures, which dodges exile effects like the dreaded Farewell and lasts until your next untap step. 

Trouble in Pairs is a cool passive card-drawing engine, depending on your opponents doing things they normally want to do. It's rather expensive as a single, so that might be why it doesn't show up in most of the EDHREC Hazezon decks. Evolutionary Leap is a card-drawing engine that always ensures you "draw" a creature card when you sacrifice a creature, and since you should have plenty of Sand Warrior fodder it can easily be used over and over. 

Mana & Lands

A lot of lands specific to Rachel's deck fix your colors, which means she should be able to play Hazezon on time more consistently. Rith's Grove is a spicy choice that can let you return a Desert to your hand to play again for another Hazezon trigger. Vesuva can copy a Desert, or, if an opponent is playing a powerful land such as Gaea's Cradle, you can have one, too!

Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth might look a little strange, but it's a nice way to ensure your Deserts that typically provide only colorless mana can instead tap for green mana. 

In Sample Deck, Not Rachel's Deck

The spicy card I saw from the Sample deck is Knight of New Alara, which boosts Hazezon and each of your Sand Warriors by +3/+3 and quickly turn your small creature horde into a truly terrifying gang of attackers.

Land Synergies

The sample deck runs a bunch of effects like Crucible of Worlds, but I agree with Rachel's reasoning that Hazezon covers that effect well enough to free up a lot of those slots for other effects. I do, however, think Spelunking belongs in a Desert deck so that they enter the battlefield untapped and it gives you a little card draw and land ramp when it enters. 

I definitely don't blame Rachel for not running Scute Swarm in a deck with the potential for a lot of Landfall triggers, because who wants to keep track of the exponentially increasing triggers? I'll run Scutes all day on Magic Arena since the software can keep track of all that, but in paper my Scutes just sit unused in my green box. People seem to love Oracle of Mul Daya but I just don't like revealing all my card draws to all of my opponents, especially since there are cards that opponents will definitely be alarmed to see when you draw them. 

There's no doubt Constant Mists is a powerful card in this deck, but it's also incredibly frustrating to play against if you aren't playing counterspells, so I can see why Rachel chose not to run it; I don't run it in my Hazezon either.

Maja, Bretagard Protector's Landfall trigger makes more 1/1 token creatures, and it also gives your army a +1/+1 boost, making this a great meat and potatoes choice for a Hazezon deck.

Field of the Dead should have been a Desert, but despite that oversight it will obviously do good work in this deck since it should be pretty easy to get seven different named lands on your battlefield to unlock your army of 2/2 Zombie tokens.

Token Synergies

Many of these are awesome new cards that are powerful updates to a Hazezon deck; since Rachel's Hazezon list was last updated in July, I can imagine when she gets around to updating the deck she'll strongly consider these new cards, especially Baylen, the Haymaker, which loves all those Sand Warrior tokens you'll have to tap for a variety of effects. Agate Instigator is another great way to ping your opponents alongside cards like Purphoros, God of the Forge. I've been on the receiving end of Warleader's Call on Magic Arena so much that I'd definitely put it in my Hazezon deck if I had a copy available.

Deserts

I think I agree with Rachel not including most of these Deserts in her deck since they are definitely low on the power scale and increase the chance of having a glut of colorless lands early in your three-color deck. I'd reconsider Endless Sands as a way to put Hazezon back in the command zone if someone tries to gain control of it or neutralize it on board with something like Witness Protection. I also like the utility of Sandstorm Verge to cancel out a problematic blocker. 

Desert Synergies

I'm a sucker for bouncelands in Commander, so I'd definitely run Arid Archway here, and I really like both Cataclysmic Prospecting and Colossal Rattlewurm in a Desert deck. Dance of the Tumbleweeds is too low in power to really warrant a card slot. 

Removal

Beast Within and Generous Gift are flexible removal spells, but Naya decks have access to better options that I wouldn't run them here. Hour of Reckoning is an interesting choice as a sweeper that will leave your tokens intact. 

Mana

I understand why Rachel isn't running Sol Ring, since Hazezon has no colorless mana in its mana value, but I think it very nicely pays for one instance of commander tax and other higher cost spells, so I'm happily playing it in my list. Arcane Signet is excellent color-fixing, but I don't ever play it in green decks since green has better two-mana options, such as Farseek and Nature's Lore, which can find your Jetmir's Garden or shock lands, like Stomping Ground. 

Tempering The Steel

Which are your favorite cards to include in a Desert deck like Hazezon, Shaper of Sand? Are there any other spicy tech cards you'd run that don't show up in Rachel's or the example deck?

 

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