1:
Evolving Wilds and
Warped Landscape
are weapons. Use them as such. Save them in your hand as long as you can unless you just need the mana or are open to swing with a few easy triggers.
2: Vary your creatures, and save a backup plan. Once you're opponent knows what's up, they will do whatever they can to disable or tempo you. If they just have tempo, play creatures swiftly and spread out. Most tempo can effect only one or two targets at a time.
3: Take your time. It is very possible to end the game with one gigantic swing instead of a repeated assault. Gauge your opponents plays and use what you know about your local meta to your advantage. If they are going to spread out and try to aggro you faster, spread out as well for defence and make sure your
Valakut Predator
is ready to pounce. You only need one good attack, stack as many triggers as you can and use either
Magmatic Chasm
,
Elemental Uprising
, or
Retreat to Valakut
's ability to stop creatures from blocking.
4: Mina and Denn, Wildborn help IMMENSELY. They guarantee at least 2 triggers a turn while giving your Predators much needed Trample.
Titanic Growth
and Titan's Strength do not grant Trample in lieu of more damage since you will most likely be unblockable anyway, but Wildborn can give Trample to the right creature at the right time.
5: Be careful with
Swell of Growth
. If you don't have Mina and Denn, Wildborn, you need to use Swell early for damage and ramp or else you will find yourself spending 2 mana for only 2 extra damage because you are out of land. They are amazing in Mid-Game if you haven't won yet but have Wildborn and at least 5 mana to be able to tap 2, return and replay 1, tap 2 and replay a 2nd, then tap 2 and replay a 3rd with swell. You can do this with only 5 land if you remember to return the tapped mana and replay it. The 5th land is needed if you want to replay a 3rd land because Swell costs 2. This will give you 3 landfall triggers and another +2/+2 while also giving 3 creatures trample. That's a lot of things.
6: Play Akoum Stonewalker correctly by playing it on turn 2. Then on turn 3 when you play another land, activate the ability with the 3 mana and attack for 5 damage. This 5 damage is pretty much the only thing it is going to do for you, but it will strike fear in your opponent and put a target on it, which is good because it'll draw removal away from your better creatures that will do their job later. You won't be able to trigger this ability more than once until turn 5 or 6, and by then you need to focus your mana elsewhere. Unless you just don't have another option, use this guy on turns 2 and 3 or not at all. He's alright to drop later in the game if you are at a stalemate or up against a lot of tempo. The nice thing is that even if the Stonewalker get's tapped down, the Elemental can still be activated and attack for 3 trample. Do NOT activate the elemental on the landfall trigger from Sword of the Animist. Attackers have already been declared so it will just sit there and get sacrificed. Congratulations, you just wasted 3 mana.
7: Play your creatures BEFORE you play land unless it's your only play and it requires all of your land. If you are going to play Tunneling Geopede after turn 3 ever, make sure you drop it first and then play the land after to trigger the damage, especially if you have Mina and Denn, Wildborn out and can play 2 lands, or are going to explode a whole bunch of land that same turn. Same thing goes for the lifegain on
Jaddi Offshoot
if you drop them after the first turn.
8: Do. Not. Top deck. Hold off a few turns and build your hand if you have to, but timing is everything in this deck. Your main play is to explode as many things all at once. If you try to drop creatures and land and spells every turn, you will run out of cards quickly and fall short with nowhere to climb. There will basically never be "that one card" that will save you. There is, of course, one exception to this. Animist's Awakening is literally your ONLY top deck card that could possibly revive you, but only if you have also managed to keep a few creatures and
Retreat to Valakut
. Just have patience.
9:
Retreat to Valakut
is an absolute bomb to have on the board just before you are ready to unload. With 5-8 landfall triggers very likely, that can add 10-16 damage to one on your Predators (who should have trample from Wildborn) on top of it's own 10-16 extra damage, or you can use the second ability to clear a path by using as many triggers as needed to make him unblockable. This is your most deadly weapon that builds up damage the fastest. Even a paltry 4 landfall triggers makes Valakut Predators an 18/10 creature when Retreat is down. This is a turn 5 play, folks. That's MUCH faster than most Standard decks. Very susceptible to tempo or removal, so don't rely on this working every game. It will get your opponents attention though when you absolutely crush their dreams on game one as they look at your lone little 2/2 and "let it through".
10: Sideboard everything. The sideboard is designed to amp your aggression while giving you evasive options as well as a little bit of control with
Devour in Flames
as a cheap means of taking down lofty foes and Planeswalkers for only 2 mana (since you get to return a land to your hand and could replay it). Of course, use it sparingly since there are only 4 of them available to you. Using it on the first few turns could slow down your opponent, but unless you know you would lose otherwise within the next few turns it's better to save it. The extra land is in there to help maintain your curve and give you even more fuel. Can't drive if you're out of gas.
11:
Elemental Uprising
only works if they have 1 or fewer blockers. Use it to add 4 extra damage to an open board or force that lone blocker to step aside and let your Predator win the game.
Magmatic Chasm
is the card you want to wait for if there are 2 or more blockers. Flyers will still be a problem, though.
