Magic: The Gathering - Gruul Landfall - Deck Overview 11

This series is back for another round, and this time it's showcasing a deck that exploits the Landfall mechanic! Here's a video from Wizards of the Coast describing how Landfall works.

In short, this deck is built to play permanents with Landfall abilities, and to place lots of lands on the table using cards like Harrow and Burnished Hart to trigger those Landfall abilities as many times per turn as possible. The Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse land cards also double-trigger Landfall.

This strategy serves several purposes:

1. Mana advantage means the general can be cast sooner, and there are more casting opportunities overall.
2. Landfall abilities add extra beneficial effects for the player or damage to opponents as a "free" bonus.
3. The general makes a massive army.

And who is this general? He's green, he's mean, he's red, and you're dead! It's Omnath, Locus of Rage! CMC 7 for a 5/5 creature without haste or trample seems a bit pricey until you read those abilities. Free 5/5 elemental creature tokens whenever lands enter the battlefield? Nice. A free Lightning Bolt effect whenever any elemental dies? Even better! When combined with all the land ramp, this guy can hit the table long before turn 7, and can pump out a beefy army in short order.

So, what are the weaknesses in this deck? For one, Omnath is vulnerable to spot removal, and anyone who knows what he does and sees where the deck is going will target him as soon as possible. Since half of this deck is land cards, there are also 10-15 fewer spell card slots in the 100-card library than there are in most other decks. The focus on landfall abilities removes some options for artifact hate and enchantment hate. There is no protection from flying creatures.

This entire deck can be built for around $30 in its current configuration, but of course there are plenty of other cards that could be added in to make it more reliable. After playtesting a bit more, I will decide what to remove and what to swap in. For example, I would like to add an Ogre Battledriver to give another haste effect and also boost damage output, and he isn't expensive. I may also shift the land card balance to favor green a bit more, since the casting costs use far less red than green in this deck, and most of the land tutoring allows the choice of any basic land. As always, experiment and modify until you're happy with a deck!

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Commander Introduction
Deck 1 - Goblins Incorporated
Deck 2 - Azorius Shenanigans
Deck 3 - Bruna Voltron
Deck 4 - Green Tide Elves
Deck 5 - Special Forces
Deck 6 - Dimir Mill
Deck 7 - Golgari Elves
Deck 8 - Simic Proliferation
Deck 9 - Gruul Rage
Deck 10 - Black Death
Casual and Competitive Decks

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