The EDH Land Deck

So, like I said in the previous post, I wanted to try to port one of my favorite constructed decks to EDH and see how it worked out. Alright, so it’s actually two decks, but they’re pretty similar. 43 Lands from legacy and Eternal Garden, which is a less popular hybrid of 43 Lands and Stax. I’ve always loved land-based strategies, because your engines are typically uncounterable, and that’s just begging to be broken.

I mean, really, the idea behind the land deck is just so elegant. You simultaneously develop your board and draw extra cards with Life from the Loam. Your tutors not only find the card your deck runs on, but also sets up your late game. Sure, you’re vulnerable to a few sideboard cards, but the gameplan is so simple, explosive, and resilient. It draws cards better than blue decks, controls creatures better than wrath decks, and can play the land destruction game with the best of them. To me, the land-based decks are some of the most interesting and awesome creations in recent memory.

So, with that said, I wanted to try to port this idea over to EDH. In order to do that, you’ve really got to try to break down what the land deck is trying to do. You’ve got a couple of components I feel are necessary to focus on in order to make the deck run well:

1. Utility lands. These are the ridiculous non-basics that have been printed over the course of the game. These are your Nomad Stadiums, Horizon Canopies, Bojuka Bogs, and other lands that act like spells.

2. Additional Land Drops. Pretty self-explanatory. Exploration, Manabond, that kind of thing.

3. Draw Engine/tutors. This is typically the combination of Life from the Loam and Cycling lands. I’m going to stray away from that in this deck since you only get one copy of life from the loam, and you want to limit the “vanilla” lands in the deck. Ones that just cycle aren’t that exciting without Life from the Loam or some other way to recur the effect.

4. Recursion. Speaking of recursion, here’s where I run into a little bit of trouble. Life from the Loam and Crucible of Worlds are the first two you think of, but after that, the pickings are pretty slim. Keep reading to see what I could come up with; I’d love to hear if you come up with something better.

5. Resource Denial. Wasteland and Rishadan Port in 43land, you’ve got to expand your horizons a little bit if you’re going to make this plan work in a singleton format, as well as a multiplayer format. This is going to have to extend into ways to neutralize other resources, like spells and creatures, so that you increase the number of dead cards in opponents’ decks.

6. Win Conditions. Man Lands. Worm Harvest. Primeval Titan. You know, win conditions.

So what list did I come up with? Take a look below. I’m pretty sure there’s pretty significant room for improvement. But, this seems like a great place to start. I’m excited to test it out at least. Here’s what I’ve got:

Sacrifice Child of Alara

Diamond Valley

High Market

Miren, the Moaning Well

Control the Board

Smokestack

Braids, Cabal Minion

The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

Kor Haven

Ice Floe

Maze of Ith

Mystifying Maze

Prahv, Spires of Order

Solitary Confinement

Hall of Mists

Glacial Chasm

Strip Mine

Wasteland

Ghost Quarter

Dustbowl

Extra Land Drops

Azusa, Lost but Seeking

Exploration

Summer Bloom

Oracle of Mul Daya

Burgeoning

Rites of Flourishing

Budoka Gardener

Tutors and Card Draw

Crop Rotation

Intuition

Gamble

Entomb

Demonic Tutor

Idyllic Tutor

Mystical Tutor

Sylvan Library

Enlightened Tutor

Primeval Titan

Tolaria West

Cephalid Coliseum

Horizon Canopy

Trade Routes

Dark Tutelage

Dark Confidant

Mulch

Horn of Greed

Seer’s Sundial

Ad Nauseam

Recursion

Volrath’s Stronghold

Dance of the Dead

Genesis

Emeria, the Sky Ruin

Academy Ruins

Petrified Field

Tilling Treefolk

Life from the Loam

Crucible of Worlds

Eternal Witness

Holistic Wisdom

Win Conditions

Knight of the Reliquary

Terravore

Avenger of Zendikar

Last Stand

Seismic Assault

Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

Celestial Colonade

Raging Ravine

Creeping Tar Pit

Lavaclaw Reaches

Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree

Utility

Prismatic Omen

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Whim of Volrath

Warp World

Bojuka Bog

Nomad Stadium

Zuran Orb

Deserted Temple

Vesuva

Ground Seal

Mana Sources

Plateau

Sacred Foundry

Tundra

Hallowed Fountain

Savannah

Temple Garden

Scrubland

Godless Shrine

Taiga

Stomping Ground

Volcanic Island

Steam Vents

Badlands

Blood Crypt

Tropical Island

Breeding Pool

Bayou

Overgrown Tomb

Windswept Heath

Arid Mesa

Wooded Foothills

Misty Rainforest

Verdant Catacombs

Flooded Stand

Scalding Tarn

Apologies about the formatting. I'm still trying to figure out how to copy/paste things from word and whatnot without messing up the formatting on this site. It's kind of obnoxious, but I'm sure I'll get it eventually.

So, the deck plays a total of 57 lands, which is a significantly lower proportion than the legacy variant, but I think most of the spells that have been added are more than worthwhile. If you can think of some lands that I’ve missed, I’d be glad to up the land count. It’s a little disappointing to be play ~60% lands in a land deck. I’d like to add somewhere between 5-10 more lands.

I think that the early game is pretty self explanatory. Hopefully find an exploration effect, play out some lands, draw some cards. Tutor up your methods of protecting yourself from creatures and disrupting players’ mana. The real thing about the deck is the late game. The key here is that Child of Alara can’t wrath the board and return to the command zone to get recast. So, you’ve got to use him as a last minute reset button, instead of running the wrath out early. You’ve got Emeria, the Sky Ruin and Dawn of the Dead to wrath the board repeatedly, or to recur your other utility cards.

So how do you actually win the game? You can lock players under Smokestack/Braids while you wreck their mana with Strip Mine effects. Then, Knight of the Reliquary and Terravore can beat down. Last Stand and Valakut combo with some combination of Prismatic Omen, Urborg, and Whim of Volrath to turn on “domain” esque effects. You’ve got some Manlands and Avenger of Zendikar as additional ways to beat down. Lastly, if you resolve Ad Nauseam, you can just draw infinite lands and wreck people with Seismic Assault; wrathing boards and killing at least 1 or 2 players.

It’s a fun deck to goldfish with; I plan on testing the build out tomorrow (today now) at our weekly EDH night. Seems like it could go pretty well, might go really well. There were a couple of cards I considered adding to the deck that are missing. I could add Future Sight/Magus of the Future to combo with exploration effects to generate absurd amounts of virtual card advantage. If I did that then I’d want to add Sensei’s Divining Top as another Future Sight combo piece, probably in place of Sylvan Library. I kind of want to add more mirage tutors, including the sorcery speed ones. If there are more lands that can be used to control the board, like Maze of Ith/Glacial Flow/Kor Haven, I’d be happy to add those in, if you know about them.

Last thing for this week: I’m looking for ideas for additional decks to look at building. I’m going to list a few ideas I have, and if there’s any interest in those or any other ideas, you could shoot me an email or comment on the post. Hopefully the content I’ve got up so far will generate at least a little bit of interest/criticism/hate mail. Hope to get some feedback! Here are my ideas:

1. Azusa, Lost but Seeking – Landfall

2. Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant – Mono Green ramp

3. Numot, the Devastator – Wildfire

4. Kami of the Crescent Moon – ???

5. Lyzolda, the Blood Witch – Some kind of aggro deck with a lategame based on setting up absurd synergies.

6. Savra, Queen of the Golgari – Stax-ish board control

-Carlos

Carlos.edhblog@gmail.com