How to Lose Friends & Alienate People

Commander / EDH* Land Destruction Landfall RGW (Naya) Stax Tokens

PinnedPhoenix

Lands (37)

• 1x Abraded Bluffs
• 1x Arid Archway
• 1x Bountiful Promenade
• 1x Branchloft Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Bristling Backwoods
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Cradle of the Accursed
• 1x Cragcrown Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Creosote Heath
• 1x Desert
• 1x Desert of the Fervent
• 1x Desert of the Indomitable
• 1x Desert of the True
• 1x Dunes of the Dead
• 1x Endless Sands
• 1x Field of the Dead
• 1x Grasping Dunes
• 1x Hashep Oasis
• 1x Hostile Desert
• 1x Jetmir's Garden
• 1x Jungle Shrine
• 1x Painted Bluffs
• 1x Ramunap Ruins
• 1x Rockfall Vale
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Shefet Dunes
• 1x Spectator Seating
• 1x Spire Garden
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Sundown Pass
• 1x Sunscorched Desert
• 1x Survivors' Encampment
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Temple of Abandon
• 1x Temple of Plenty
• 1x Temple of Triumph

Mana Ramp (17)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Bloom Tender
• 1x Boros Signet
• 1x Crop Rotation
• 1x Delighted Halfling
• 1x Gruul Signet
• 1x Lotus Cobra
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Realms Uncharted
• 1x Selesnya Signet
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Conviction
• 1x Talisman of Impulse
• 1x Talisman of Unity
• 1x Tireless Provisioner

Token Play (14)

• 1x Annie Joins Up
• 1x Anointed Procession
• 1x Beastmaster Ascension
• 1x City on Fire
• 1x Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines
• 1x Inspiring Leader
• 1x Jetmir, Nexus of Revels
• 1x Knight of New Alara
• 1x Mirari's Wake
• 1x Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1x Roaming Throne
• 1x Shared Animosity
• 1x Warleader's Call
• 1x Yuma, Proud Protector

Land Play (4)

• 1x Azusa, Lost but Seeking
• 1x Exploration
• 1x Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1x Scapeshift

Land Destruction (3)

• 1x Armageddon
• 1x Ravages of War
• 1x Thoughts of Ruin

Commander (1)

Card Draw & Tutor (14)

• 1x Bennie Bracks, Zoologist
• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Imperial Recruiter
• 1x Mentor of the Meek
• 1x Nahiri's Lithoforming
• 1x Natural Order
• 1x Ohran Frostfang
• 1x Recruiter of the Guard
• 1x Rumor Gatherer
• 1x Tocasia's Welcome
• 1x Toski, Bearer of Secrets
• 1x Welcoming Vampire
• 1x Wheel of Fortune

Counterplay and Removal (10)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Deflecting Swat
• 1x Delayed Blast Fireball
• 1x Flawless Maneuver
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Hour of Reckoning
• 1x Teferi's Protection
• 1x Unbreakable Formation

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it's been on my bucket list to break the ultimate MTG taboo and build a land destruction deck.

it's not the moral prejudice most players hold against land destruction that's stopped me, but the fact that it's hard to make a good mass land destruction deck. you'll be shooting yourself in the foot by destroying your own lands. how do we make mass land destruction work anyway?

Hazezon, Shaper of Sand breaks parity for mass land destruction by getting you some of your lands back from your graveyard, and rewarding recasts of those lands with creature tokens. the goal here is to build an army while wiping lands off the board. no lands, no enemy boardwipes to contend with, larger armies by replaying those lands only to destroy those lands again. read about it below!

why Hazezon?

Hazezon's been a fan favorite since he was first printed back in 1994. he's disproportionately popular, considering he's a 7 mana body that summons up some tokens, since his art is awesome and his flavor--a warrior-wizard who summons sand soldiers--is on point. League of Legends even ripped him off, and who can blame them? Hazezon's awesome.

on top of all that great flavor, Hazezon's remake, Hazezon, Shaper of Sand, is also actually good. the community's noticed--he's currently the 14th most popular Naya commander, and he's only been out for three months. I think he's got a solid chance of cracking into the top 10.

but I don't think people have noticed how good he is. I don't think he's competitive--a little too slow and janky--but he might be fringe-competitive. he's also the new best land-destruction commander, in my opinion. here's why.

Naya is good at land destruction. red and white destroy lands; green gets them back. Hazezon boosts your land recovery, and rewards the effort with soldiers. while other players wonder how to respond, Hazezon builds an army and picks up what can become an insurmountable tempo advantage.

this isn't necessarily the best way to play Hazezon; it turns the whole table against you very quickly. but it's absolutely a way you can play him. if you're not about it, you can build a more tame and regimented deck pretty easily. but if you're willing to run a YOLO / screw-the-playgroup kind of deck, this one fits the bill!

the gameplan

the first thing we'll want to do is ramp into Hazezon as quickly as possible. we need him on the board to start building our army.

Doubling Season, Parallel Lives, Scute Swarm, Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines, Ancient Greenwarden and Anointed Procession will kick our army generation into overdrive. we'll translate this creature presence into card draw via Toski, Bearer of Secrets, Ohran Frostfang, Camaraderie, Collective Unconscious, and Shamanic Revelation. we'll also turn it into damage, mana, and forced sac with Purphoros, God of the Forge, Phyrexian Altar, and Smokestack.

then, as soon as we can, we drop an Armageddon-type effect. we'll have the upperhand in terms of rebuilding our mana base on account of spells like Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Oracle of Mul Daya, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove, Mina and Denn, Wildborn, and Exploration. the goal is to play more lands than our opponents can, to play deserts out of our graveyard, and to build up a tempo advantage by recovering from land wipes much faster than everyone else.

our win cons are Purphoros, God of the Forge, Jetmir, Nexus of Revels, Cathars' Crusade, Beastmaster Ascension, Moraug, Fury of Akoum, and Shared Animosity. they all give us the damage we need to deal with the board efficiently, but they're cheap enough that we don't need to build our whole deck around getting them out (see: Craterhoof Behemoth). since we're building our deck around land destruction, cheap win cons are at a premium. get one of those pieces out and swing with your huge token army for the win!

what about counterplay?

who needs it?

this deck operates on the premise that counterplay is only important when our opponents have big spells to counter. they hopefully won't get the chance to play those spells, here. our goals are simple: ramp fast and destroy lands before our opponents can get a response together. if our opponents are smart, they'll run counterspells and cheap spot removal, but people often run five or so such spells, so our chances of getting our land destruction without reprisal are solid.

if you're facing a build that can easily and consistently target Hazezon--I have a Kelsien deck that would probably wreck this one--you're SOL. a commander who can recover well from land wipes like Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait can also give us a lot of grief. this isn't a perfect build; it's fast, aggressive, and vulnerable to counterplay. playing it's a good way to see if your playgroup follows common sense deckbuilding fundamentals. if you wipe the floor with them, that's more on them than you!

our weaknesses

Hazezon's a great commander, but he has a weakness: he relies on deserts. deserts are almost all bad at mana fixing, with the exception of Survivors' Encampment. sometimes, this deck won't go off for the simple reason that it's not getting the mana it needs. it's definitely a streaky build, occasionally devastating but not quite consistent. still, with the absurd amount of ramp, tutoring, and card draw we're running, it should do just fine.

aside from that, a low-to-the-ground fliers or unblockables build--think Rogue tribal--could give us trouble. hopefully we won't be seeing too many of those, but when we do, the best we can do is target that player with our creatures and duke it out with them before dealing with the rest of the board.

lastly, this deck's too janky for proper competitive play. with a significant amount of fine-tuning and a committed focus on a more general stax theme, I could see Hazezon becoming a competitive threat. this deck's not that. it's here to party.

UPDATE: the new Elesh Norn

WotC continues their efforts to give white some love by pushing big spells. Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines might prove to be the most extreme case in this trend so far.

this card's a monster. a 4/7 body with vigilance for 5 mana would've been a power piece back in the day. that it doubles our ETB triggers and negates such triggers for our opponents pushes her beyond the pale. she's a must-remove.

note the vaguery of her wording--permanents triggering permanents is a big net to cast! this allows for lots of doubling. Hazezon, Elesh Norn, and Parallel Lives are on the board, for example. two tokens become four; but Parallel Lives' effect is doubled, too. four is doubled twice. 12 creatures from one trigger.

other cases: Cathars' Crusade, with Elesh Norn and Hazezon, turns into 8 +1 counters getting added to all your creatures. if, god forbid, you've got Doubling Season on board as well, you're getting 12 creatures and an astonishing 72 +1 counters. it's no joke.

one last observation: Purphoros, God of the Forge. Elesh Norn doubles your creatures, so that's 4 creatures, but Purphoros' trigger gets doubled as well. 16 damage to everyone at the table per desert played. a land wipe and Azusa, Lost but Seeking = instant victory. ditto for the presence of any of the other doublers.

basically, Elesh Norn is the new best spell in this build. she's a stax piece on top of fitting what we're doing here like a glove, and she's as good a blocker as we could reasonably ask for. this card kicks ass with a pair of mint-condition 1985 Jordans.

that's basically it! a mass land destruction build you can show off to your friends or maybe don't if you like having friends. suggestions welcome, give it a +1 if you like it!

Top Ranked	Achieved #1 position overall 1 year ago
Date added	1 year
Last updated	2 weeks
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 54 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 13 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.13
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Elephant 3-3 G, Food, Plant Warrior 4/2 G, Sand Warrior 1/1 RGW, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Decks to Try, Inspiration, Interesting