Green-X Landfall - Cards

I've had this on my mind since I saw a web post, where some crazy guy was playing a landfall aggro deck, revolving around a few additional elements.

 

Running Lynx + Geopede is nothing new, but  that is not what caught my attention.

The ideal play for this sort of deck is T1 Steppe Lynx, T2 Plated Geopede(fetch, attack for 4).  T3 Fetch, Harrow, attack for 17, dead on turn 3.  Or various other combinations he runs through that also yield them being dead fairly quickly.

However, you may note that this requires three different, untapped, colors of land on t1-3, and fetches that in general do not fix your mana.  (RW fetch - Arid Mesa, is the only one that would be actual mana fixing)

The deck also had non-synergistic spells like Inferno Titan (vs Primeval), and Hero of Oxid Ridge (which is synergistic in that it empowers attackers, but at RR2, would be fairly hard to cast), and Precursor Golem.  They're good, and they invalidate some strategies, but they don't seem amazing. The RW aggro decks are often sideboarding OUT the Plated Geopedes, even in 12+ Fetchland decks, so going into another color to get this, plus two other things that don't really help the general strategy, seems marginal.  One thing these creatures do is overload the cheap removal that is often used to remove them, so that is something. but really, the mana seems like a nightmare.

However, this post did get me excited, and got me thinking about green-based landfall, because there are quite a few green effects that would strongly benefit a landfall-based strategy (because green is good at ramp).  The key in my mind is to make them actual good cards, that combine fairly well with other actual good landfall cards.

Reasonable Landfall Cards:

The core, Green:

  

 


Green has a ton of the land-playing abilities, which we'll talk about later, so finding good cards in this color are much better than potential good cards in other colors.

Lotus Cobra is very strong.  It ramps you to 5 on turn 3, potentially 6 on turn 3.  Rampaging Baloths is a fine threat against the white (chump-)blockers we see nowadays.  Avenger is a very solid finisher.  Both of those can win games on their own.  Gladeheart can do a fair(ly bad) impersonation of a Obstinate Baloth, but would be a sideboard card at best against hyper-aggro.

Friend-color color splashes:  White + Red

Friend color splashes are:
Good, because it makes the mana very reliable.  The new lands from MBS (come into play untapped if you control 3 or less lands), and the M10 duals (CIP untapped if you have a basic of the appropriate type), give you strong access to the right color, untapped, on turn 1, and turn n.
Bad, because the fetches are tap-lands (Terramorphic Expanse) or do not fix your colors.

Steppe Lynx and Geopede are incredibly aggressive creatures.
Emeria Angel is a great blocker against a Hawk-filled metagame, and provides a stream of attackers.  Admonition Angel would be good if your opponent has removal for it, which seems fairly non-plausible.  Rampaging Baloths is probably better against those decks anyway?

The enemy colors: Blue and Black

Enemy color splashes are:
Good, because they have a "on color" mana fixer, in the fetchlands you want to play anyway.
Bad, because that fetchland is the only mana fixer that allows the land to come into play untapped.  You can still use Terramorphic Expanse/Evolving Wilds, and "off-color" fetchlands to power up the main deck theme.

Ob Nix is pretty much the best card here.  Caustic Crawler really needs those to be -1/-1 counters to be great.  SSE is pretty reasonable, as the creature count rises, but it's not amazing.  The crab is a role-player in decks that are probably not this one.

Secondary splash advantages:
Outside the cards that specifically help the decks synergy/strategy, you also have to consider cards that you get from all of these splashes that are not landfall or land-searching.  Blue adds counterspells (Mana Leak), and card drawing (Jace, Preordain), Black adds creature removal (Doom Blade, Go for the Throat), and discard (Inquisition of Kozilek, Duress).  Red adds damage-based removal (Lightning Bolt, Arc Trail).  White adds semi-removal (Oust, Condemn)

Colorless colors: the artifacts

These two cards are amusing, because of how different they are.  One is a cheap way to pump creatures in this deck.  The other is a expensive way to draw cards, but given the interaction with this deck, both of these should be considered, depending on the outlook.

Reasonable "Play More Lands" Cards
The best:

Explore is a great card, because it is cheap, it replaces itself late, it accelerates you early.

When combined with a turn 2 Lotus Cobra, an Explore can accelerate you into a turn 3 Primeval (Explore -> Fetch -> Fetch -> 6 mana)

The one downside to this, in my mind, is that it does not search a land out of your deck, but rather gives you a random card.  So if, on turn two, you need a third land, you might not get it.  However, the advantages of Explore make it a top contender for a deck like this.

Oracle is a incredibly strong card. 

It lets you play lands off the top, so you are always drawing a spell.

It lets you play lands off the top, so you are thinning your deck, and accelerating, without having to draw the cards.

It combines well with fetchlands, because you can shuffle to try and either get more lands, or better spells on top.

It combines well with Explore (and blue cards like Preordain, Jace, and Halimar Depths) to rearrange the top of your library in a favorable way for you.  (Give you more shots at land, etc)

Oracle is a near-lock for this deck.

Primeval Titan is a format-warping card.

It can search for non-basics, which means it can get two fetchlands (setting up omni-landfall next turn), two dual lands, two Tectonic Edges, and so on.

And, of course, it provides you two (additional) landfall triggers on a turn.

In contrast to some other PT decks, the PT doesn't have to necessarily survive and attack for it to be good.  The PT is a pretty good setup card for the rest of your deck, but otherwise a strong top-end.

It would be pretty hard for me to look at any board state, and not want my card in hand to be Primeval Titan.

Genesis Wave is a hay-maker.

It doesn't combo very well with instants or sorceries you might use, but if you utilize enchantment, artifact, creature, or planeswalker-based removal, it can get that, which is pretty nifty.


This deck is likely to make a zillion mana, so being able to use it to win the game "next turn" (or this turn, if you have any landfall-based board position) could be useful.






 
The Rest:

Both of these are three mana, two land cards, that trigger landfall when played.

Cultivate is "safer", and gives you actual card advantage, as well as more total land once you run out of land to play.

Harrow is higher variance, can be cast as an instant, and sets you back a land if countered.

I don't really like KHE, even though it says "Landfall" and gets lands.  Anyway, the good and bad:

When your deck is working, it works, when your deck isn't...

It "stores" lands up, for potential use later.

It is a pretty bad topdeck, because it doesn't trigger landfall until you play 3 more lands (ug).  It's kinda slow to turn on.

Multiple KHEs charge each other up pretty well, and some effects (like Primeval Titan) charge it up quite well.

It is a perminant, for Genesis Wave, and is only non-creature to qualify as working with Genesis Wave at all.  (It also charges up near-instantly if revealed on Genesis Wave)


What would the final deck look like?
Well, it depends on the colors.

I like a core of:

Get More Land:
4x Oracle of Mul Daya - 3G
4x Primeval Titan - 4GG
4x Explore - 1G

 Use More Land:
2x Seer's Sundial - 4
3x Avenger of Zendikar - 5GG

Both:
4x Lotus Cobra - 1G

1x Genesis Wave  - XGGG


Neither:(Removal, counter, discard)


Land:

4x Tectonic Edge
12x Fetchland as appropriate (Green/X, Green/Y, X/Z, Terramorphic, Evolving)
12x Basic/Dual.

That leaves around 12 cards, that have to either use the land we're generating, or be non-synergistic but shore up other holes in the deck.

I believe that whichever path we choose, at least 4 slots need to be devoted to some sort of removal.
If Red, Lightning Bolt/Arc Trail
If Black, Doom Blade/ Go For the Throat/ Inquisition of Kozilek/Duress
If White, Oust/Condemn/Journey to Nowhere

If the splash is Red, we'd likely play Plated Geopede(1R), and another removal spell (both Arc Trail (1R) and Lightning Bolt (R))

If the splash is White, we'd play Steppe Lynx (W) and Emeria Angel (2WW)

If the splash is Black, we'd play Ob Nix(3BB), and another "removal" spell in the form of one of the discard spells (B), and one of the "true" removal spells (1B).