One of the most exciting cards from Aether Revolt for Eternal formats is Renegade Rallier. This is a card that functions as a pseudo-Sun Titan for just 3 mana, particularly when you’ve got fetchlands to turn on the revolt trigger. The real question is this: what’s the most degenerate thing you can be getting back? Sure, just having a hybrid of Watchwolf and Wood Elves is just fine, but there’s got to be something more powerful, right? Caleb Durward may have found it.
Naya Landfall - Modern | Caleb Durward
- Creatures (26)
- 2 Ghor-Clan Rampager
- 4 Knight of the Reliquary
- 4 Plated Geopede
- 4 Renegade Rallier
- 4 Steppe Lynx
- 4 Tarmogoyf
- 4 Wild Nacatl
- Instants (8)
- 4 Lightning Bolt
- 4 Path to Exile
- Enchantments (2)
- 2 Seal of Fire
- Lands (24)
- 1 Forest
- 1 Mountain
- 1 Plains
- 1 Bloodstained Mire
- 1 Horizon Canopy
- 1 Marsh Flats
- 1 Temple Garden
- 1 Treetop Village
- 2 Sacred Foundry
- 2 Stomping Ground
- 4 Arid Mesa
- 4 Windswept Heath
- 4 Wooded Foothills
- Sideboard (15)
- 2 Ancient Grudge
- 2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
- 2 Ghost Quarter
- 2 Qasali Pridemage
- 2 Selfless Spirit
- 2 Thrun, the Last Troll
- 3 Lightning Helix
The key here is you’re able to use Renegade Rallier to re-buy fetchlands, which means you can get an additional two landfall triggers off of one Renegade Rallier. Throughout the history of Modern, landfall creatures like Steppe Lynx and Plated Geopede have been a little too anemic for the format, in large part because you’d run out of fetchlands and because they couldn’t really compete with the likes of Cranial Plating and Steel Overseer. Renegade Rallier changes all of that.
Now, you can curve Steppe Lynx into Plated Geopede into Renegade Rallier to threaten lethal on the third turn of the game. The first Steppe Lynx attack can be for four if you have a fetchland, followed by up to seventeen on the following attack if your opponent doesn’t have blockers. Even if they do, you can force them into an atrocious position or just use Lightning Bolt or Path to Exile to clear the way off of your extra land drop.
Given the most explosive decks in the format were both taken down a peg by the recent bannings, the addition of a new deck that can boast relatively consistent kills on turn three and four is a big deal. This is especially true given this deck is at least moderately resilient to both Lightning Bolt and various sweepers, provided you can leave up enough fetchlands to counter opposing removal spells. That means you’re at least moderately well set up to play a slower game against the likes of Kolaghan's Command and Snapcaster Mage.
If you’re looking for a deck that is just as aggressive as Infect and Affinity, but a little more resilient to Path to Exile and less vulnerable to haymakers like Stony Silence and Melira, Sylvok Outcast out of the sideboard, this deck is may quickly become one of the most powerful strategies in the format. It’s potential is largely dependent on just how consistent and resilient the deck turns out to be, but there’s certainly enough power here to merit exploring the concept more thoroughly.