Bobo Avalanche

Posted on March 5, 2013

Welcome back for another synergy-abusing list of Magic: The Gathering cards! It’s Gruul Week, and that means and . Those types of mana aren’t particularly known for their comboliciousness, though the Izzet League does like its , and the Simic Combine surely appreciates its . So I guess those colors do have their subtlety. (I wonder if blue has anything to do with it.)

But Gruul? The Clans are the Ravnica guild of incomplete sentences and useless Pit Fighting. But there is one among them who is adept at throwing sand in the faces of his opponents. So, let’s give him a lot of sand.

"Bobo Avalanche"

Bobo

This guy’s superpower turns land cards into Lightning Bolts, and while most decks have lands, not as many have Lightning Bolts. That means he can serve as a useful converter. The problem is in getting him—at 8 mana—online.

There are ways to cheat things onto the battlefield, and then there are ways to cheat things onto the battlefield that have Legacy decks half-named after them. The Sneak half of Sneak and Show can put our favorite Cyclops into play for only 1 mana—provided we pay the first 4 upfront.

Signal the Cyclops

If we don’t find a Sneak Attack, we’ll have to try to survive quite a bit longer in order to achieve our sand-flinging victory. However, if we don’t find a copy of Borborygmos Enraged, winning at all will be quite difficult. Here are a few ways to search him up on command.

Fierce Empath is a very useful Commander card—one I highly recommend for most creature-based green decks. Here, the Mirari-morphed Scourge Elf will find us a copy of Borborygmos.

Magic 2013’s Human Empath imitator is less fierce (or more fierce if we’re actually comparing power to power), and the best use I’ve seen for her up until now was fetching Vampire Nighthawks in my B/G Limited decks, but here, the Gruul guild leader’s trample serves as a connection that links the two between the vast distance that is our library.

Finally, Gatecrash’s new Signal the Clans pulls these three pieces together. You can search for a copy of Borborygmos Enraged, a copy of Fierce Empath, and a copy of Mwonvuli Beast Tracker, meaning you essentially have a copy of the Cyclops no matter what the random outcome.

Providing the Sand

We’ll need to give Bobo plenty of land cards, and in lieu of a Sneaky Cyclops, we’ll need enough mana to cast him. Yavimaya Elder serves as another 3-drop, though this one finds two lands when it dies and can even draw a bonus card for a couple measly mana. Singletons of Borderland Ranger and Krosan Tusker provide redundancy in case we need to use a Signal the Clans to bring our mana online. The Tusker isn’t an awful creature to Attack with Sneakily either.

And with all these 3-drops (even Krosan Tusker’s cycling ability costs 3), it’d be great for any of the deck’s acceleration to cost 1, allowing us to jump to 3 mana on turn two—rather than having an awkward Rampant Growth that puts us to 4 mana on turn three without much in the deck that actually costs 4. To that end, I included four copies of Wild Growth. Llanowar Elves and friends are acceptable as well, but the Auras are less susceptible to removal.

Two copies of Seek the Horizon and a single copy of Life from the Loam round out our land-helping spells. The former is like a full clip of ammunition for Borborygmos—to mix my previously-sand-based metaphor—and the latter is the rechargeable battery that his—let’s mix all the metaphors together now—sand-shooting Lightning Bolt gun can run on.

The final card in the deck isn’t a ramp spell or even a land-searching spell, and it certainly isn’t as efficient as Life from the Loam if you’re looking to find more lands to place on the battlefield. However, it is a key element to what holds this deck together. Creeping Renaissance can retrieve a stack of dead creatures for a new string of Sneak Attack activations, but more importantly, it can totally recharge Borborygmos Enraged for those times when 6 to 9 damage just isn’t enough. In a multiplayer game, this card—especially with its flashback—is what will allow us to kill multiple players.

Lands Are Important

That’s probably not news to any of you, but here, they’re even more important. Sure, they have to exist in the deck both so we can cast spells and so we can ditch them for 3 damage at a time, but in addition to all that, a few of these land choices were made for more purposes than just those having to do with color.

Normally, I just throw in lands that match the colors of the deck in what seems like a good ratio, and then, I let ya’ll figure out what you want based on your own preferences, card availability, and monetary resources. This time, though, despite their cost, I suggest Wooded Foothills and Stomping Ground for highest effectiveness.

Both of these lands make available on turn one, letting us cast Wild Growth on time for a turn-two 3-drop. You could just run more Forests to ensure the acceleration, but is very important later when we want to activate Sneak Attack multiple times in a turn. Wooded Foothills offers the additional advantage of ending up in to the graveyard, thus fueling Life from the Loam and Creeping Renaissance. For that purpose, I added Evolving Wilds as well, though the tappedness could make it difficult to cast our spells on time.

Note that the deck also wants a lot of basic lands to be fetched by Seek the Horizon, Yavimaya Elder, and our two one-of creatures.

Live the Dream

Last week, I included a table laying out an ideal sequence for that deck. I liked that, and I’m going to do it again. Note, though, that the following sequence is not required for the deck to win, and there are other routes to victory. That was especially true of last week’s deck, and it seemed to cause some misconceptions. This is just me imagining a series of plays that I think would be awesome to experience. Indulge me!

Play	Cards in Hand	Mana
Turn one	7
Wooded Foothills	6
Sacrifice Wooded Foothills for Forest.	6
Wild Growth on Forest	5
Turn two	6
Wooded Foothills	5
Sacrifice Wooded Foothills for Stomping Ground tapped.	5
Wild Growth on Stomping Ground	4
Turn three	5
Wooded Foothills	4
Sacrifice Wooded Foothills for Mountain.	4
Sneak Attack	3
Sneak Attack Yavimaya Elder	2
Fetch Mountain, Mountain at end of turn.	2 plus two Mountains
Turn four	3 plus two Mountains
Wooded Foothills	2 plus two Mountains
Sacrifice Wooded Foothills for Mountain.	2 plus two Mountains
Sneak Attack Borborygmos Enraged	1 plus two Mountains
Attack for 7 with Borborygmos Enraged.	1 plus two Mountains
Put three Forests in hand with trigger.	1 plus two Mountains plus three Forests
Discard two Mountains and three Forests for 15 damage.	1
Creeping Renaissance lands	Two Mountains plus three Forests plus four Wooded Foothills
Discard two Mountains, three Forests, and four Wooded Foothills for 27 damage.	0

So . . . yeah. That’s one way that could go.

Cheating on Gruul

There are other ways to go with the plan as well, such as toying with blue for Treasure Hunt or white for Enlightened Tutor or Sterling Grove to help find that Sneak Attack victory. Or just for more consistency with the land theme, you could run Seismic Assault. I imagine Borborygmos Enraged with Boundless Realms and Sunder could be one way to close out a game as well.