Free stuff beats card draw at the kitchen table
Cards like Edric, Spymaster of Trest, Toski, Bearer of Secrets, and Marisi, Breaker of the Coil can greatly benefit from creatures with shadow since theyre really hard to block
Between the counter distribution on ETB and the general benefits of being in green, we should have no trouble maintaining the largest creature
How much does a budget Commander deck cost
[cardlist]4 Celestial Colonade 2 Plains 4 Creeping Tar Pit 4 Island 4 Marsh Flats 2 Swamp 4 Arcane Sanctum 4 Lullmage Mentor 4 Sphinx of Jwar Isle 4 Punish Ignorance 4 Countersquall 4 Offering to Asha 4 Cancel 4 Negate 2 Essence Scatter 2 Soul Manipulation 4 Into the Roil[/cardlist] This deck offers many more cards that allow us to counter any kind of spell, and that is a tremendous boon
This means that the deck will play a lot of black tutors to find an effect like this and attempt to discard Haakon with Tortured Existence and the like