This deck is an Arcades, the Strategist EDH deck built around getting Arcades out onto the field, dumping our entire deck of Defenders and swinging for lethal damage.
Arcades is an obviously powerful commander but I think his value generation is underestimated, especially when you look at the deck's mana curve. Most creatures with Defender cost very small amounts of mana and with Arcades on the field, they can beat out even the most expensive cantrips in terms of card draw, often hitting a 1:1 ratio for mana spent and cards gained. This is before we consider that they deal damage according to their Toughness as well. But let's take a look at how we get set up to cast these creatures with our ramp cards:
Axebane Guardian
Overgrown Battlement
Saruli Caretaker
Ulvenwald Captive
Vine Trellis
Gatecreeper Vine
Circuitous Route
Explosive Vegetation
Farseek
Rampant Growth
Search for Tomorrow
Azorius Signet
Simic Signet
Selesnya Signet
So we have quite a bit of ramp available to us here. Especially good are cards like Axebane Guardian, Overgrown Battlement and Saruli Caretaker. Not only will they draw us a card when they come into play, they can also make sure we maintain enough mana to keep Arcades on the field if he gets targeted or to cast our Defenders at a ridiculous pace.
With my other decks, I usually include a section about card draw after mana ramp is established but this deck is unique in that it doesn't explicitly have any (unless you count Mentor of the Meek). While requiring your commander on the field to increase your draw might seem like a hindrance, Arcades produces so much value and so quickly that this deck doesn't need draw spells. The low mana curve of this deck will ensure you can get Arcades out and start drawing an insane amount of cards by turn 4 at least, turn 6 at most. The goal is to get the most out of our commander but let's go over some cards that are particularly valuable to the win con:
Axebane Guardian + Overgrown Battlement will help us cast our creatures and therefore draw at insane speed
+ Tetsuko, Umezawa Fugitive will ensure that most of our creatures can get through with unblockable since they have little to no power
+ Sunscape Familiar is going to help reduce the cost of almost all of our spells, allowing us to cast our creatures even faster
+ Wakestone Gargoyle will allow us to continue swinging in case we lose Arcades after we set up
+ Doorkeeper will help us do some damage to our opponent's libraries, and possibly win us the game under the right circumstances
+ Wild Pair is possibly the most powerful card in the deck, letting us get a 2-for-1 deal on most of our creatures, triggering Arcades and increasing our total threat twice as fast
While the above cards aren't necessarily win conditions in and of themselves, they can become very threatening and difficult to deal with, especially since they can hit the field so quickly. There are a ton of other effects on the creatures and in the deck, like tapping blocked creatures, gaining life for damage blocked, buffing our creatures' toughness, giving them vigilance and others but those listed above will be the most unique or considerable most of the time.
Since this is a creature and combat heavy deck, we know they'll inevitably be hitting the graveyard so we have to consider some cards to keep us in the game for the long-term. Fortunately, there are some valuable recursion cards which will help us out:
+ Return to the Ranks can practically empty our graveyard since most of our creatures cost 2 or less and we're running more than enough to keep a few on the field
+ Colfenor's Urn will save us from a boardwipe as long as at least 3 of our creatures die
+ Elixir of Immortality will reshuffle our entire graveyard back into the library so we can draw into our creatures all over again
There isn't a lot in terms of recursion here but what is here is extremely powerful and can likely shift the game in our favor when played well. But we also have some ways to stop our opponents from hurting our board state in the first place:
+ Join Shields is going to be a lifesaver whenever it's cast, untapping our army and giving them near-invincibility with Hexproof and Indestructible
+ Dovin's Veto and Counterspell will save us from a devastating spell when needed
Now let's go over what we can do to ruin our opponents' board states:
+ Time Wipe will let us grab Arcades or whatever creature is most valuable on the field and wipe the rest of the board
+ Slaughter the Strong will almost always wipe every side of the table but ours
+ Wave of Reckoning will have a similar effect to Slaughter the Strong for us, doing absolutely nothing to us and devastating our opponents
+ Solar Tide allows us to be picky about what creatures die from it's effect
+ Fell the Mighty is similar to Solar Tide but we get even more choice from it
Most of these boardwipes won't end up hurting us and if they do, it won't be for long as our cheap cards and insane draw will allow us to get back into and stay in the game. I haven't gone over all of the interactions in this deck but by reading this and looking at the decklist, you will have a good idea of how it works. If you have any questions, comments or noticed that I made some mistakes, please feel free to leave some feedback below so that I can edit and modify these decks. I hope you enjoyed reading about this deck and hopefully it gave you some ideas. Happy brewing!