Flavor of the Month: Literary Landwalk
"A poem is a walk." --A. R. Ammons
Welcome to Flavor of the Month, where we build decks flavor first!
Longtime readers of this column (can I say there may be "longtime" readers? I've been doing this column for over a year, now, after all!); anyway, longtime readers will already know that I am an avid literary nerd and professional poet in my spare time (that is, my spare time spent writing about Magic), so when I first discovered this cycle of lands from Legends, I was particularly excited:
Poetry! Good poetry! Poe! Dickinson and Longfellow! The forest primeval! On Magic cards! Of course, I immediately found a home for them. I just happened to be building four Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful
(And if you're newer to the game and are wondering why you've never seen Karakas
I love with the juxtaposition of a place in the Magic world with real-world poetry; it feels like a familiar entry point into the world of Dominaria, which was our only plane we'd seen at the time, like we're using more familiar emotional touchstones from our own reality to tell stories and set the stage for these new locales.
The best poems--and the best art, I'd say, including film, television, paintings, music, and so on--have a sense of discovery about them. The creator may have a rough idea in mind when they set down to create, but the art might pull them in a new direction as they proceed; learning to listen to that voice that tells you to pivot or explore elsewhere is one of the most important parts of learning to make great art.
Art is in many ways about discovery; say, reading a poem and looking up to find yourself in Pendelhaven
Ingredients
With that in mind, let's set some simple rules for our deckbuilding:
- All lands must be legendary to keep us traveling and wandering to new, notable vistas
- All other cards must either be a legendary permanent or a two-sided card with a legendary permanent on the back to keep us open to the possibility of change in our gameplan at all times. Preferably both!
Can we stick to these stipulations and still make something halfway functional? Let's find out. I mean, given how much focus there is on legendary creatures, especially in all the Universes Beyond releases we're getting, it can't be that hard, right?
Something I learned when building my first Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful
With Arbaaz, we can literally count how many legends we told--of places, people, or noteworthy items...and we may just be counting down to our opponents' demise in the meantime as we shoot for 40. All the better!
Preparation
The gameplan of this deck is pretty simple: have nearly every card we play trigger our commander's ping ability. The more we can trigger it, and the more those pings can do, the better the deck performs. Having a bunch of lands also read "When this enters, deal 1 damage to each opponent and gain 1 life" is an advantageous place to start.
We've recently received two very playable cycles of legendary lands, from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty and The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, with the former cycle being multi-format all-stars. Turns out an untapped land that replaces a basic and has relevant abilities that can't be Counterspell
All told, we end up with 25 one-sided legendary lands that are remotely feasible to play (no one is suggesting The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
Some other standout legendary lands include Shivan Gorge
Legendary cards that flip into other legendary permanents, like Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh
We don't have to cast our legendary/historic permanents to get the damage from our commander; they just have to enter the battlefield and not be a token. With that in mind, it makes sense to do some light blinking with creatures like Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd
Worried this style of gameplay will make you the target at your table? Fear not! Have Heliod, Sun-Crowned
For the most part, we're keeping our mana costs pretty low; given that we have almost no mana rocks or ramp due to our stipulations, that's a necessity. Only a handful of spells are over three mana (and a few of the expensive ones actually have cost-reducers built-in), and we're leaning on cards that get better as the game goes on--that scale up, so to speak--like Mirror of Galadriel
Also, we can speed up the burn by getting more than one damage per permanent. Gandalf the White
That said, the single best card in this deck is just a single red mana. It's a 2/1, though I've never seen it do combat damage. And it's almost impossible to interact with; that goes for its controller, too. Guessed which card it is?
As anyone who's blinked and found themselves dead by the time they opened their eyes when facing off against a Purphoros, God of the Forge
Yield
Here's our well-traveled concoction!
Literary Landwalk
View on ArchidektCommander (1)
Artifacts (20)
- 1 Azor's Gateway // Sanctum of the Sun
- 1 Brass's Tunnel-Grinder // Tecutlan, the Searing Rift
- 1 Chimil, the Inner Sun
- 1 Excalibur, Sword of Eden
- 1 Gerrard's Hourglass Pendant
- 1 Golden Argosy
- 1 Heroes' Podium
- 1 Kayla's Music Box
- 1 Lost Jitte
- 1 Matzalantli, the Great Door // The Core
- 1 Mirror of Galadriel
- 1 Mithril Coat
- 1 Mox Amber
- 1 Palantír of Orthanc
- 1 Stone of Erech
- 1 The Irencrag
- 1 Thousand Moons Smithy // Barracks of the Thousand
- 1 Thran Temporal Gateway
- 1 Umezawa's Jitte
- 1 Weatherlight
Creatures (37)
- 1 Boromir, Warden of the Tower
- 1 Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh // Chandra, Roaring Flame
- 1 Delney, Streetwise Lookout
- 1 Eight-and-a-Half-Tails
- 1 Fortune, Loyal Steed
- 1 Gandalf the White
- 1 Gilraen, Dúnedain Protector
- 1 Gimli of the Glittering Caves
- 1 Glóin, Dwarf Emissary
- 1 Heliod, Sun-Crowned
- 1 Hope of Ghirapur
- 1 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
- 1 Kari Zev, Skyship Raider
- 1 Kytheon, Hero of Akros // Gideon, Battle-Forged
- 1 Layla Hassan
- 1 Norin the Wary
- 1 Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might // Temple of Power
- 1 Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation // Temple of Civilization
- 1 Peri Brown
- 1 Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd
- 1 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
- 1 Reidane, God of the Worthy // Valkmira, Protector's Shield
- 1 Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh
- 1 Samwise the Stouthearted
- 1 Sarah Jane Smith
- 1 Senu, Keen-Eyed Protector
- 1 Skrelv, Defector Mite
- 1 Solphim, Mayhem Dominus
- 1 Surtr, Fiery Jötun
- 1 Taii Wakeen, Perfect Shot
- 1 Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle
- 1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
- 1 The Capitoline Triad
- 1 Torbran, Thane of Red Fell
- 1 Traxos, Scourge of Kroog
- 1 Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful
- 1 Zo-Zu the Punisher
Enchantments (4)
Lands (38)
- 1 Abstergo Entertainment
- 1 Alpine Meadow
- 1 Arid Mesa
- 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
- 1 Eiganjo Castle
- 1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
- 1 Elegant Parlor
- 1 Flagstones of Trokair
- 1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
- 1 Gemstone Caverns
- 1 Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
- 1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity
- 1 Hall of the Bandit Lord
- 1 Hammerheim
- 1 Inspiring Vantage
- 1 Inventors' Fair
- 1 Keldon Necropolis
- 1 Kher Keep
- 1 Kor Haven
- 1 Marsh Flats
- 1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
- 1 Minas Tirith
- 1 Mines of Moria
- 1 Miren, the Moaning Well
- 1 Mountain
- 1 Plains
- 1 Rath's Edge
- 1 Sacred Foundry
- 1 Sacred Peaks
- 1 Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep
- 1 Shivan Gorge
- 1 Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance
- 1 Spectator Seating
- 1 Sundown Pass
- 1 The Grey Havens
- 1 Untaidake, the Cloud Keeper
- 1 Windswept Heath
- 1 Wooded Foothills
That's it for today! I hope you enjoyed this little jaunt we took together. I don't have a fancy sign-off slogan, but what I do have is a fancy new MTG content channel I started just this spring; I hope you'll check out MTG Variety Hour on Instagram, Tiktok, YouTube, and Twitter (nope, still not calling it X) and say hi to me there. Until next time, thanks for reading!