Readers!

I am used to a little bit of preamble at the top of my articles but I am pretty excited about a card previewed in Core set 2021 and I'm probably just going to barrel right on through and start talking about what I want in the deck. The funny thing is, this commander's ability is not new and none of the cards I plan to add to the deck are all that groundbreaking. The reason for my excitement is that I want to see how greedy I can get with the number of lands I add to a deck, and which utility lands that I usually gloss over I can bring to the table. In an effort not to make this particular deck feel like one I've made dozens of times, I'm going to focus on the lands we can play in a deck like this on top of the new cards that also shine. At the time of writing, the set isn't fully revealed, but considering anything that you'll want to go into the deck will either be obvious or won't hurt you any if you miss it, let's pretend we're getting all of the help we need for the deck from Core Set 2021 and blaze a trail. Let's keep these paragraphs short, we got a deck to build.

You already know what the commander of the deck is because you read a blurb about the deck before you clicked the link and your peripheral vision works. You're probably already as excited to build with this as I am.

While being able to play a land from the top of your library is not new, it's new to a Legendary creature in these colors and that's what I care about. Having access to this ability starting on turn three (let's face it, 2) makes me want to always be able to hit it. Not just that, I want to be able to really take advantage. I want to rip a land, cast Explore and rip another land, cast Azusa, Lost but Seeking and play some more lands and ramp out of control. I want multiple landfall triggers in a turn every turn and I want to be able to go all Dakkon Blackblade on my foes with my commander. Being able to play multiple lands, get a ton of them back with Splendid Reclamation to get more landfall triggers and dig greedily with Life from the Loam. In short, I want this to be the landiest deck I've ever landed and to do that, I think I'm cranking up the mixture and going with 50 lands, which is far above my normal land distribution and which should allow me to find some interesting lands I don't typically run.

In order to make a deck that can win with far fewer spells than normal, I'm going to have to make every spell count. One way I plan to do this is with a powerful new creature also from Core Set 2021 - Terror of the Peaks.

This is substantially better than something like Purphoros, God of the Forge in terms of the sheer amount of damage it can do (though it's worse with 1/1 tokens, which I'll have a lot of) and it's better than Pandemonium because other players don't benefit from it. Not only that, it has a sort of frostbite armor and can serve for 5 in the air, which is non-trivial. Creatures are easier to remove than Enchantments or indestructible enchantments that are also sometimes creatures but there's no way someone getting clocked for five every time you hit a landfall trigger with Omnath, Locus of Rage out is going to notice that. Between Omnath and Titania, Protector of Argoth you will be blasting people for 12% of their life total early and often with Terror out and I can't wait for him to join the team.

Azusa is not a new card but this is a VERY welcome reprint. Contrary to what some might believe, people in the finance community don't actually dislike reprints, even if we had copies of Azusa that we paid a lot for and were holding onto. I sell a lot more copies at a lower price after a reprint and so does Coolstuff Inc., and lower prices for consumers and higher throughput for sellers makes everyone happy. Azusa is going to keep us in landfall triggers and keep the top of our library strictly business and when the price drops, I can finally put a copy in all of my landfall decks.

There are a few other interesting cards in the set but what's even more interesting is the pile of lands I don't usually think about that I get to play with in this deck. While it's true I'll be playing lots of lands and potentially drawing some cards if I have my Horn of Green out, I may dump my hand very quickly. This is potentially the first deck I've ever built where Burgeoning is still good if it's not in your opening hand and my hand is going to get exhausted quickly. Since I think Regal Behemoth deserves a look in this deck, one land I've always considered but never played with is Throne of the High City. Saccing Throne isn't that big a deal since we have ways to bring lands back from the 'yard and getting the Monarch emblem in play creates a fun subgame that gets people attacking, which can break board stalls. If people are still too shy to attack, you can just remain the Monarch forever and have a free Phyrexian Arena that doesn't even tickle.

Another effect I don't talk about much in this series is Strip Mine effects. I don't generally like Mass Land Destruction because it can make the game miserable and intractable. However, pinpoint Land Destruction is important and I don't think it violates our 75% principles. In fact, if anything, it reinforces tenet #7 in that you can sometimes use a well placed Strip Mine to keep them from doing something antisocial to you. Whether you're popping a Scavenging Grounds to force them to use it early or destroying a Homeward Path (the bane of my existence), targeted land destruction is more about removing their utility lands than it is trying to make someone stumble on mana. In fact, punishing someone for stumbling on mana is probably the worst use of Strip Mine in a multiplayer game because you should be focusing on the biggest threat, not the person farthest behind. Dust Bowl is a great choice because it can't get basics, meaning you're basically unable to keep someone out of the game entirely. You can, however, keep that Cabal Coffers player from running away with the game and the table will likely thank you for it. With ways to get lands back from the graveyard, play extra and maybe even tutor for a land, this deck will be a good spot to try out some Ghost Quarter effects.

Finally, I want to talk about Ghost Town because I think it's underplayed in landfall decks. You can scoop it up on every player's turn and if you have a Burgeoning or a creature like Sakura-Tribe Scout, you can trigger landfall at will, which is very useful. Making surprise blockers or throwing off combat math is powerful and Ghost Town lets you continue to bounce it, keeping the triggers coming. It doesn't need Burgeoning, and Burgeoning doesn't need it, but you should play both. With Crucible of Worlds, Ghost Town is also a good card to discard if people are making you do that.

I don't know if I will be able to do much with Radha's first strike ability but one aspect of Radha's third ability is how good it is with Elemental Mastery, a card I usually play in conjunction with Omnath, Locus of Rage and Purphoros. I only get 49 slots for shenanigans but I think I have room for a card like Mastery and the ability to give Radha +12/+12 for 6 mana twice in a turn could come up. I hesitate to run a card like Elemental Mastery when we don't benefit from having Elementals all that often, but given the fact that coupled with our commander it can just swarm the board with tokens for us, I'm willing to make an exception. Besides, I think we can make sure the tokens die so it triggers Omnath, Locus of Rage by using Goblin Bombardment.

Goblin Bombardment also synergizes with Helm of Possession and Captivating Crew, the latter of which is very good in a deck with lots and lots of mana and the former of which is good in a deck with lots and lots of tokens. I don't want to give their borrowed creatures back and now I never will. There isn't a ton of room for more Threaten effects but that's OK because we're maxing out on landfall stuff with the room we have.

What would a deck like this look like and what sort of new lands that I have been overlooking can I jam in here? Let's see where we end up.

You Won't Get Radha Me That Easily | Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Radha, Heart of Keld

• Creatures (22)
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 1 Akoum Hellkite
• 1 Avenger of Zendikar
• 1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
• 1 Captivating Crew
• 1 Courser of Kruphix
• 1 Dragonmaster Outcast
• 1 Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
• 1 Nesting Dragon
• 1 Omnath, Locus of Rage
• 1 Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1 Rampaging Baloths
• 1 Ramunap Excavator
• 1 Regal Behemoth
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Springbloom Druid
• 1 Terror of the Peaks
• 1 Tunneling Geopede
• 1 Ulvenwald Hydra
• 1 Wayward Swordtooth
• 1 Yavimaya Elder

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Nissa, Vital Force
• 1 Nissa, Who Shakes the World

• Instants (4)
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Crop Rotation
• 1 Harrow
• 1 Return of the Wildspeaker

• Sorceries (8)
• 1 Boundless Realms
• 1 Broken Bond
• 1 Explore
• 1 Finale of Devastation
• 1 Harness by Force
• 1 Life From The Loam
• 1 Rishkar's Expertise
• 1 Splendid Reclamation

• Enchantments (6)
• 1 Burgeoning
• 1 Elemental Mastery
• 1 Exploration
• 1 Goblin Bombardment
• 1 Retreat to Kazandu
• 1 Zendikar's Roil

• Artifacts (8)
• 1 Crucible of Worlds
• 1 Gruul Signet
• 1 Helm of Possession
• 1 Horn of Greed
• 1 Lifecrafter's Bestiary
• 1 Mimic Vat
• 1 Seer's Sundial
• 1 Sol Ring

• Lands (52)
• 20 Forest
• 8 Mountain
• 1 Blast Zone
• 1 Blighted Woodland
• 1 Bonders' Enclave
• 1 Castle Embereth
• 1 Cinder Glade
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Drownyard Temple
• 1 Dust Bowl
• 1 Fabled Passage
• 1 Field of the Dead
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 1 Ghost Town
• 1 Gruul Turf
• 1 Kazandu Refuge
• 1 Kessig Wolf Run
• 1 Prismatic Vista
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rootbound Crag
• 1 Rugged Highlands
• 1 Strip Mine
• 1 Temple of Abandon
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Thespian's Stage
• 1 Throne of the High City

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This was kind of hard, actually. The last few cuts were fairly agonizing and when I have 39 lands in a deck and a cut is tough, I cut a land. Starting at 50 and staying there was really tough. I think this will play substantially differently than a traditional landfall deck, though, and that owes to having early and guaranteed access to a card that lets us play lands off of the top. Suddenly our draws are much better which is akin to virtually drawing cards. Players who are smarter than me say Scrying 1 is like drawing half a card and if that's true, Scrying but choosing to put a land into play rather than putting it on the bottom has to be like drawing closer to one card. You are going to almost always draw gas and you'll almost never miss a land drop. Start adding Horn of Greed, Azusa and other cards that let you play more and draw more, and you'll ramp out of control in no time. With better card selection you will get your plan in motion faster than they do if they stumble at all.

I considered a Zuran Orb to both keep you alive and fuel big turns where you play a gigantic Splendid Reclamation and just dome everyone with landfall. You might cut to 49 lands to add it or you may cut a cute card. Either way, it's worth a look. Any card that was banned in the past deserves a look, honestly. Granted that was in a 60 card format with multiple copies of Necropotence but still, someone took a look at Zuran Orb and said "this is breaking Magic" and while we don't need to relitigate that, we should at least give the card a shot.

If you can squeeze another token generator or two in here, it may help. I think it probably runs fine as-is, but if you find you're coming up short, even something like Jade Mage could be good. Typically in a deck like this I'll run 10 fewer lands and you could run Squirrel Nest, Earthcraft, Cryptolith Rite and maybe something like Mycoloth or Ulasht, the Hate Seed. You can certainly go down on the number of dorky landfall creatures like Tunneling Geopede and find room for cards you consider more fun. I personally think Ulasht is a hoot and I don't run it enough. You don't even need an $80 copy of Earthcraft to make Squirrel Nest seem broken - Wilderness Reclamation can make it feel unfair, especially if you're doing lots of work with that token like triggering Purphoros, tapping it for mana with Cryptolith Rite then swinging with it after you cast Return of the Wildspeaker.

You don't have to run all 50 lands, but I think if you do, you'll get much more mileage out of your commander's ability and you'll ramp quickly. Burgeoning will always be a good card. Horn of Greed will make you feel greedier than ever. Lands will fall, followed by empires. Make fat stacks of mana, Captivate their whole crew then conquer them. Whatever you do, don't let up the pressure - remember, your commander can easily swing for 21 if you pump her twice, so don't be afraid to catch someone sleeping after a wrath, play her, give her haste, pump and take someone out. They can wrath all they want, you will have like 20 lands and a fist full of options.

That does it for me, readers. Thanks for joining me this week and keep your eyes peeled for more spicy Core Set 2021 commanders we can build around. Until next time!