The Commander
Survival — At the beginning of your second main phase, if Kona is tapped, you may put a permanent card from your hand onto the battlefield.
Guide
Gameplan
Tap Kona each turn—usually by attacking or with a convoke/tap outlet—to cheat a permanent from hand onto the battlefield in your second main phase, effectively giving you a free drop every turn. You build a wide, mana-rich green board, accelerate into huge creatures and powerful enchantments/artifacts ahead of curve, then snowball card and mana advantage into an overwhelming position. Keep Kona alive and tapped, refill your hand, and grind opponents out with bigger threats.
Strengths
- Repeatable free permanent every turn cheats on mana and dodges spell-based counters.
- Mono-green gives best-in-format ramp and creature card draw to keep the engine fed.
- Flexible—any permanent works, from huge beaters to engine artifacts and enchantments.
- Low opportunity cost: tapping to attack already triggers Survival, so you advance and pressure simultaneously.
Weaknesses
- Engine stalls if Kona is removed, and mono-green has weak interaction and protection.
- Requires Kona to be tapped, so vigilance or a tap outlet matters and you're vulnerable on swing-back.
- Only one permanent per turn—not explosive enough alone to outrace fast combo decks.
- No built-in evasion or recursion; relies on support cards to stay relevant.
Key Cards
- Heroic Intervention — Cheap protection keeps Kona and your cheated board safe from wraths and targeted removal.
- Shamanic Revelation — Refills your hand off a wide green board so Survival always has fuel to deploy.
- Craterhoof Behemoth — A premier finisher you can cheat onto the battlefield for free to close games out of nowhere.
- Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider — A huge permanent that's perfect to drop via Survival and doubles your green ramp and counters.
- Cultivate — Early ramp and fixing gets Kona out faster and keeps lands flowing for hardcast backups.
- Asceticism — Hexproof and regeneration shields the whole team, making the Kona engine far harder to break up.
Upgrade Path
Add fast mana (Sol Ring, mana dorks, Nykthos) and a few tutors like Worldly Tutor or Survival of the Fittest to load your hand with the best permanent to drop each turn. Prioritize protection (Heroic Intervention, Tyvar's Stand) and a recursion/backup engine so losing Kona doesn't end the game, and lean toward standalone bombs that win on their own. To push higher, include green combo pieces and big payoffs you can cheat in for free, turning Survival into a tempo-positive way to assemble your win.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Overrun the table with a pumped wide board via Craterhoof Behemoth or Overwhelming Stampede.
- ▸Cheat out and stack powerful permanents to build an insurmountable mana and board advantage, then grind opponents out.
- ▸Deploy an oversized, evasive or trample threat each turn and beat down through combat damage.
Archetypes
- Big Mana Ramp — Kona rewards loading your hand with expensive permanents and cheating one out free each turn.
- Stompy/Beatdown — Tapping to attack triggers Survival, so swinging with fatties advances your board for free.
- Enchantress/Permanents Value — Survival can deploy game-warping enchantments and artifacts, turning Kona into a value engine.
- Toolbox Midrange — Any permanent qualifies, letting you tutor and drop the perfect answer or threat each turn.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (G), by popularity.
