In this experiment, we again retreat, this time with a ranger, a scout, and some adventuring gear.

Three weeks ago, I wrote about going infinite with Retreat to Kazandu, not yet realizing it was a cycle. A week later, we’d seen Retreat to Emeria, and I wrote about that, assuming there’d be three more coming. Now that we’ve seen Retreat to Hagra, Retreat to Valakut, and Retreat to Coralhelm, my favorite of the cycle has been revealed. Naturally, it’s the blue one.

In “Fertile Landfall,” I figured out how to turn the +1/+1 counter Retreat to Kazandu gives us into a land in order to create a loop (Fertilid!). In “Perilous Retreat,” I used the same method to turn the 1/1 Retreat to Emeria gives us into a land (Perilous Forays!). So of course, this time, I want to figure out how to turn untapping (or tapping) a creature into another land. Incidentally, there are a few creatures that make this super-easy for us.

Now, we do have the restriction that we need to actually have a land in hand to put down in order to trigger the Retreat again, allowing us to untap the creature and put another land down and so on. Thus, our loop will be limited by the number of land cards in our hand. The downsides are that we can only iterate a number of times equal to the number of lands in our hand and that we won’t actually be doing anything productive to the board. The upside is that actually we will be doing something productive to the board: playing lands at a much more rapid pace than we should be able to!

Essentially, this two-card combo gives us a kind of Fastbond that we don’t have to take damage for using. If we also had an Archivist or Arcanis the Omnipotent on the battlefield, along with a second Retreat to Coralhelm, we’d be able to put down a lot more lands a lot more quickly. I can imagine slotting some of these into a G/U Commander deck to really accelerate like crazy.

For today, though, I arbitrarily gave myself the restriction of only using commons and uncommons. If you want to throw in some rares and mythic rares, some options include the aforementioned Budoka Gardener, Archivist, and Arcanis the Omnipotent and Lotus Cobra, Vinelasher Kudzu, and Cloudstone Curio.

Turn Two

Not only do we have a two-card combo that simulates a Fastbond (without dealing damage to us and without being banned in most formats), it can be active on turn three. And while many combos I assemble essentially have to be a turn later than I want them to be, after casting an expensive enchantment or requiring follow-up mana to take advantage of the combo, with this, we can actually use the extra lands we’re putting down for mana to fuel whatever else we want to do that turn.

In addition, since our combo requires a 1-drop and a 3-drop, we have turn two available to cast a win condition.

Hedron Crab — And this doesn’t even cost 2. We can cast this on turn one or two to complement the Skyshroud Ranger or Sakura-Tribe Scout. And if we have a Thornwood Falls, we can play that on turn one and then play both our 1-drops on turn two.

Adventuring Gear — This also only costs 1, though to equip it, we’ll need to take advantage of all our turn-two mana. Alternatively, we can wait to equip it until we’ve dropped an additional land on turn three and have that mana available, but that will cost us a trigger.

Commune with the Gods — This is a reasonable turn-two play, especially if we haven’t found a Retreat to Coralhelm yet. Theoretically, this would take us off casting a Crab or Gear for value, but as mentioned before, we can still cast them on turn three while comboing if we’re willing to sacrifice a trigger or two.

Ior Ruin Expedition — Here’s a good way to draw some more lands to keep the combo going. If we play this on turn two and then a land on turn three to cast Retreat to Coralhelm and lead into the combo, we just need two more lands in hand to activate the quest that turn and perhaps put down a couple more lands.

Turn Three

So, turn three is pretty well taken care of by casting Retreat to Coralhelm, but we won’t always have that in hand. Let’s look at some other options.

Cultivate — When we want land cards in our hand, casting one spell that finds us two seems great.

Retreat to Kazandu — We can’t infinitely loop with +1/+1 counters as we could in the other deck, but if we’re able to loop a bunch of times, I certainly wouldn’t mind having this on the battlefield to passively generate infinite counters. Oh, and infinite life isn’t that bad either. Wait, who said anything about going infinite? I thought we were limited by the land cards in our hand!

Thus, a turn-three win might look like this:

Turn one: Thornwood Falls, gain 1 life

Turn two: Forest; Skyshroud Ranger; Adventuring Gear

Turn three: Island; Retreat to Coralhelm; activate Skyshroud Ranger, dropping a Forest, untapping the Ranger; use Forest mana to equip Adventuring Gear to the Ranger; activate Ranger, dropping Simic Growth Chamber, untapping the Ranger, triggering the Gear for +1/+1 on the Ranger, and returning the Growth Chamber; repeat the last step ad infinitum; attack with Skyshroud Ranger for any amount of damage

Of course, the opponent might have a blocker, or there may be more than one opponent, but that’s what Hedron Crab is for.

Coralhelm Growth Chamber ? Casual | Andrew Wilson

• Creatures (12)
• 4 Hedron Crab
• 4 Sakura-Tribe Scout
• 4 Skyshroud Ranger

• Spells (24)
• 4 Commune with the Gods
• 4 Cultivate
• 4 Ior Ruin Expedition
• 4 Retreat to Coralhelm
• 4 Retreat to Kazandu
• 4 Adventuring Gear

• Lands (24)
• 8 Forest
• 8 Island
• 4 Simic Growth Chamber
• 4 Thornwood Falls

Buy This Deck

When building your own version of the deck, you may take a look at some of the rares mentioned earlier. You also may want something to spend all your excess mana on. I didn’t include a mana outlet in this deck since the actual plan is to go infinite with Simic Growth Chamber. But here are some cards from Battle for Zendikar you may want to try out.

So if you needed just one more retreat, if you haven’t Hedron Crabbed in a while, or if you just like the idea of going infinite with Sakura-Tribe Scout, give this deck a try.

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com