Pointing Out The Obvious

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mattlohkamp

13 September 2009

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Landfall - whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, X-Y-Z.

As preview cards slowly make their way to Wizard's Zendikar Visual Spoiler, the new keyword 'Landfall' is something everyone should be paying attention to. It's no coincidence that Knight of the Reliquary has gone from selling for a dollar and change to costing nearly $4 - think about what a knight could do when coupled with the Rampaging Baloths pictured above, for instance.

The knights can actually trigger landfall twice - tap the knights to sacrafice a Forest, grab a Terramorphic Expanse and put it into play, tap the expanse and sacrafice it to put a Jungle Shrine into play tapped (it would've come into play tapped anyway, so that isn't even a downside) a Plains into play tapped - and not only have you generated two 4/4 beast tokens and fixed your mana for free, but if you've done all this on your opponent's end-step, your new Plains will immediately untap when your turn starts, completely removing the one drawback to using the expanse to fetch a basic land!

Now that you're in the right mindset, I'm sure you have no trouble thinking of (or searching for) other cards that can help you abuse Landfall. Most obviously, there are 'fetch lands:' a cycle of Panoramas from Shards of Alara, the afore-mentioned Terramorphic Expanse, and the upcoming cycle of enemy-coloured fetch lands (such as Arid Mesa from Zendikar. Each of these are a two-for-one deal - put the fetch land into play, sacrifice it, put another land into play - Knight of the Reliquary essentially taps to turn any forest or Plains into a fetch land. Double landfall plus mana fixing? Sounds like a good deal to me. In a somewhat similar vein, the Borderposts from Alara can also be a Landfall-enabler - drop two mountains, the Plated Geopede pictured above, swap a mountain for a Veinfire Borderpost, replay the Mountain, Terminate your opponent's blocker, and swing for 3 first strike on turn 3 with your mana fixed, and the option to threaten with Lightning Bolt.

There have been conversations in my own local group of players as to whether 1 Borderpost = 1 land, or 1 Borderpost = .5 land, or whatever - but where Landfall is concerned, I would argue that a late-game Borderpost is nearly always as welcome a draw as a land card itself when hoping to make Landfall, as it allows you to replay the basic land of your choice for free. (Which I've heard lohkampster refer to as 'the Borderpost dance'.)

Green in particular has a handful of good land-fetching devices (someone has written an article on the subject, in fact) and although we're losing a few (like Farhaven Elf and Fertilid) when Lorwyn/Shadowmoor leaves us, all is not lost - no doubt Zendikar will include more variations on this familiar design. Also, be on the lookout for cards that allow you to return things to your hand - returning lands or recurring land fetching permanents is always good (Sanctum Gargoyle and Armillary Sphere?). One last random thing to note - you can't Cascade into a land, but you can Cascade into any of the spells listed above that set you up with a land.

So - whether you're putting a land directly into play, or just stuffing your hand with lands to play on future turns (while also slimming down your deck to make your next draw more viable, according to the theory of Deck Thinning) it isn't hard to put yourself in a situation where you can really milk that Landfall ability.

One last little treat, before I go:

note regarding Zendikar cards - WotC is lamentably reluctant to make it easy for outside sides to access its card database, so TTappedOut is occasionally missing a few new cards, especially right as a new set is released (or previewed) - if the Zendikar cards linked in this article haven't been added, consider taking a moment to help out and submit them to TappedOut's card database. Your allies and opponents alike thank you!

Additional note - thank you, iroccoi, for pointing out that Terramorphic Expanse only grabs basic lands - otherwise, you could use it to grab your next expanse, and pull off a 6-land chain! (expanse-expanse-expanse-expanse-fetch land-basic land). Sometimes I get a little over-excited.