What if Commander’s most devastating board wipe wasn’t powered by rage – but by Empathy?
Kogla, the Titan Ape – a symbol of Nature vs Technology. True primal fury. This towering titan annihilates everything in his path, tears down entire cities, and fights nightmarish creatures from across the planes. But counterintuitively, this apex archetype of strength has a soft spot – the weak, the fragile, those who need protection.
That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, Kogla’s got Empathy. It’s his soft spot, but also his greatest strength. In today’s Kogla, the Titan Ape deck tech, we’re going to weaponize empathy. It’s that empathy we’ll use to combo out Beast Within infinite times to turn each permanent on our opponents’ board into a beast. Then we’ll clean up the resulting mess with an Ezuri’s Predation to fight each of those beasts with even bigger beasts. Let’s dive in!
Check out the deck here: https://archidekt.com/decks/12982259
Kogla, The Titan Ape
Kogla is a mono-green 7/6 Ape for 6 mana. He fights an opponent’s creature on his way in. He blows up an artifact or enchantment defending player controls when he attacks. Lastly, you can pay 2 mana to protect a little tiny human by bouncing them to your hand. That empathy empowers Kogla, giving him a reason to keep fighiting – and indestructibility until end of turn.
There’s a lot to like here. Removal on ETB and repeated removal on attack in the command zone is excellent. 7 power is a commander damage sweet spot, only requiring you to connect three times to get to 21 commander and knock someone out. You can give Kogla indestructible until end of turn on demand, making him tough to remove.
So, naturally, the base shell supports classic mono-green strategies: ramp, trample, big creatures, and fight spells. A Voltron route is viable. And that’s exactly where I started.
This was primarily a fight-themed deck, with cards like Fight Rigging, Ram Through, Boxing Ring, Arena and Barroom Brawl. Kogla was joined by fighty friends – Gargos, Vicious Watcher, Grothama, All-Devouring and even the illegal (but hilarious) Slaying Mantis. I promise you, no one will complain when Slaying Mantis jumps off the top rope to fight their creature.
Add in a few support humans to enable Kogla’s indestructibility, and you’re set!
It was the perfect, smooth-brained Timmy deck. Just enough stack interaction to be interesting, but primarily a big, dumb, creatures-turning-sideways strategy.
Oops, This Is Actually A Combo Deck
One day, a friend piloted the deck and unlocked an incredible series of multi-card infinite combos. These combos were not put into the deck intentionally, but got more and more explosive with each next step he discovered. What started with infinite mana ended with a complete one sided board wipe – lands included. I was in awe. Let me walk you through it.
Step 1: Get Infinite Mana
With just a pair of Swiftfoot Boots and Karametra’s Acolyte, my friend stumbled upon an infinite mana combo using Kogla’s bounce. See, the Acolyte can tap for a large amount of Green based on your devotion. If you pay 2 to bounce her with Kogla, 4 to re-cast her, and can still equip the boots and have mana left over. You can repeat this indefinitely to establish infinite green mana.
Step 2: Loop Your Draw Spells
He followed this up with a Rishkar’s Expertise, and with that played an Eternal Witness. Since the Witness is also human, he was able to bounce her back to hand with Kogla and re-cast her, using it to get Rishkar’s Expertise again. Since mana wasn’t an issue, he could repeat this loop to draw almost his whole deck.
Step 3: Turn All The Stuff Into Beasts
He then looped Beast Within with Eternal Witness to destroy all opposing permanents — replacing them with 3/3 Beasts. That’s a lot of 3/3 beasts, right? If his opponents gang up on him, he’d have a hard time staying alive. What’s next?
Step 4: Fight Those Beasts With EVEN BIGGER BEASTS
The crescendo? Casting Ezuri’s Predation to create an army of 4/4 Beasts that fought and killed all the 3/3 Beasts. One of the truest board wipes I’ve ever seen. His opponents didn’t even have lands left!
From that day on, I wanted to recreate this combo, and the deck evolved to support it. Let’s walk through the different aspects of the combo and how we might consistently get there with redundant effects.
Establishing Infinite Mana
There are a few on-theme ways to reach infinite mana.
The original combo involved Karametra’s Acolyte and a haste enabler – Swiftfoot Boots, Lightning Greaves, Lavaspur Boots, etc. As long as you have high enough devotion, Kogla can loop her to establish infinite mana.
The problem with this loop is that in mono-green, it’s tough to tutor up artifacts. Green is much better at finding creatures. This is where Hyrax Tower Scout comes in – a Human that untaps a creature when he enters. This is an alternative to a haste enabler, as you can bounce and re-cast the Scout to untap your big mana dorks and ideally get your infinite mana.
You could also run untap effects like Emerald Charm or Benefactor’s Draught in combination with Eternal Witness to get infinite mana instead of the Scout.
Other Big-Mana Mana Dorks
We also wanted some redundancy with these big mana dork effects, so we added a few more. Bighorner Rancher taps with at least 7 with Kogla in play, on top of having just an incredible name. With just Kogla and Hyrax Tower Scout, the Rancher can get you infinite mana by looping the Scout. Unfortunately, you will need Kogla to be a bit beefier to have the Rancher create infinite mana with one of the boots. Luckily, you’re in green, so it shouldn’t be too much of a struggle.
Heronblade Elite is also on-theme here, tapping for mana equal to his power. Unlike the Acolyte or Rancher, you won’t be able to loop the Elite for infinite mana. You will need to rely on Hyrax Tower Scout. Heronblade Elite does get bigger each time you cast a Human, so the Hyrax loop has the added benefit of making Heronblade Elite arbitrarily big. Just add trample!
Finding the Right Creatures
To assemble your combo consistently, you’ll need creature tutors. Green excels here, you can decide which ones to use. High-power options includeWorldly Tutor, Natural Order, and Survival of the Fittest. Budget/fair options include Shared Summons, Fauna Shaman, Chord of Calling, Eldritch Evolution, Tooth and Nail.
If you tutor with an instant/sorcery, fetch Eternal Witness first to reuse your tutor next turn.
I’m using Green Sun’s Zenith, Worldly Tutor, and Archdruid’s Charm. Note that Green Sun’s Zenith shuffles itself away, so it can’t be recurred — but that just adds variety.
Drawing Cards
We’ll need some way to draw a bunch of cards to make finding pieces of the combo easier. Infinite mana and infinite Eternal Witness mean just about any card draw spell will do. But since you won’t always have infinites, let’s pick cards that work well with this type of deck regardless.
Kogla’s 7 power is a great way to make use of Green’s draw spells based on your creature’s power. Rishkar’s Expertise and Soul’s Majesty come to mind here. Hunter’s Prowess is also cool. Typically just a combat trick, you could repeatedly cast this on Kogla to make him huge and draw most of your deck.
Harmonize is a nice option that doesn’t rely on anything and can be cast whenever. Lastly, Beast Whisperer gives you a steady supply of cards throughout the game, but also allows you to draw as many cards as you want if you can establish an infinite bounce loop with Kogla.
Commander’s Cleanest Board Wipe
From here, once you are able to establish the loop and find your cards, you just need to repeatedly cast Beast Within to destroy everything. Then follow up with an Ezuri’s Predation and to fight each of your opponents’ beasts with bigger beasts of your own.
Kogla’s Other Cool Cards
Let’s talk about other cards that make the deck fun to play outside of just trying to go for a combo.
Card Draw
Viridian Revel – works really well with Kogla’s attack trigger. Also passively works well against any player playing artifacts they want to sacrifice, like Treasures, Clues, Food, etc. This would be particularly good against my Glissa deck.
Ramp & Other Mana Dorks
Rhonas’s Monument is ramp, evasion and an alternate win condition all in one. Infinitely re-casting any creature will trigger the monument countless times, making any or all of your creatures arbitrarily large and have trample. This is typically enough to knock someone out – just don’t get Delirium‘d!
Drumhunter, while overcosted for a mana dork, also draws a card a turn if Kogla’s out.
Shaman of Forgotten Ways taps for two mana that can only be used to cast creatures. He also has an alternate win condition as an 11 mana activated ability.
Somberwald Sage is a Human Druid for 3 that taps for 3 that also can only be used to cast creatures.
Likewise, Whisperer of the Wilds is a two mana Human Shaman that taps for 1, but can tap for 2 if you control a creature with power 4 or greater.
Aside from mana dorks, consider running cost-reducers and traditional green ramp. Kogla’s expensive at 6 mana and will only get more expensive if removed. Plus, you want the mana to activate his abilities or play protection spells. So a heavy emphasis on ramp will go a long way in this deck.
Removal
I really like the land Arena for this deck. Just be careful not to count it as a land when deck building, as it does not produce mana. Arena’s activated ability does not specify that the creatures you’re targeting must start untapped. You can make Kogla indestructible, attack, and then activate arena to take out another creature even before blockers are declared.
Liquimetal Torque and Liquimetal Coating can turn your opponents’ permanents into artifacts. Use this with Kogla’s on-attack trigger to blow up creatures or lands (you monster) that wouldn’t normally be artifacts.
Druid of Purification is a human with an ETB that allows you and your opponents to destroy artifacts or enchantments that don’t belong to you. Being that he’s a human, you can bounce and re-cast him with Kogla to repeat this effect.
Protection
Not Of This World is a neat colorless and probably free counterspell that will help you protect Kogla. There are plenty of one-mana ways to protect creatures or permanents in Green, but this one is usually free. And you get to say “sorry, can’t target Kogla, he’s Not Of This World.”
Slippery Bogbonder is a neat card that puts hexproof counters on creatures at instant speed. She’s a bit expensive for this effect at 4 mana, but she is a human so we could repeat it.
Misc
Timeless Witness is good redundancy to Eternal Witness and she can be eternalized from the graveyard. You cannot loop the Eternalized token so use this ability with caution!
Fight Rigging‘s hideaway will be met as soon as you put a counter on Kogla, which is great, and synergizes with the fight theme.
Putting it all together
This deck is a blast. With ramp and big mana dorks, you can land Kogla early and start smashing. He supports both Voltron and combo strategies, and you can shift the build depending on your meta.
If your group plays heavy removal, pack more protection spells like Tamiyo’s Safekeeping, Veil of Summer, or Autumn’s Veil. If not, go heavier into fight and big green dudes.
There’s enough redundant effects for your combos to make this deck pretty consistent, yet still flexible enough to explore non-combo win conditions. There are a number of different ways to achieve infinite combos, so learning the lines and figuring them out on the fly is a fun puzzle to solve. You can power up or down this deck easily to match your playgroup, making Kogla a flexible and satisfying foray into mono-green shenanigans.
Whether you’re fighting creatures or turning everything into a beast, this deck delivers green’s finest punches with a gorilla-sized heart.
Empathy has never hit this hard.
Enjoy the decklist here: https://archidekt.com/decks/12982259
Find some other cool Kogla interactions? Some mono-green favorite shenanigans? Post them below!
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