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Mina & Denn's Rampaging Roil | V-EOE

Commander / EDH Bracket 4 Landfall Lands Primer Ramp RG (Gruul) Scapeshift Value Engine

Beebles

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Lands (43)

Protection (7)

Recursion (6)

Draw/Filter (19)

Landfall (16)

Tutors (10)

DOT (4)

Overrun (3)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Mina and Denn, Wildborn

Interaction (19)

Ramp (13)

Tokens (7)

Maybeboard

Lands (15)

Tokens (3)

Draw/Filter (2)

Interaction (11)

Landfall (5)

DOT (2)

Other (2)

Protection (8)

Recursion (6)

More Lands (3)

Tutors (2)

An optimized primer for an underrated lands matter commander

"The rampaging Roil creates life out of the most volatile elements."

Roil
Hello there, and welcome to my Mina and Denn, Wildborn list This is currently the **#1 Mina and Denn list on tappedout!** A big thanks to all who have up-voted this deck since its inception or have challenged me to consider new cards. I really appreciate it!
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Origin

The extended format used to be my favorite format. And in those days, Aggro-Loam was one of my favorite decks. So when starting with commander I was slowly gathering land-related cards for the inevitable land-centered commander deck: a deck where lands are not just a resource, but also the main weapon. And this is the result: my take at a land-recycle kind of commander deck, inspired by the best times I had during Extended.

Deck Overview

The vision for the deck was to constantly be moving lands around from your hand, the board, and the grave, from and to all those 3 destinations, and gaining something from that displacement in the process via a trigger or activated ability. The dream is to chain many triggers to create some sort of wicked moving landmass engine that keeps on rolling until it all suddenly explodes in the faces of our opponents!

Mina and Denn, Wildborn fit very well with this mission, because they enable one of the loops on their own: getting more lands in play and getting them back into your hand. The latter is a nice mana-dump ability as well that will help the deck to always do stuff with all the lands it amasses (pun intended). We also get easy access to trample which is a nice bonus.

Of course there are other cool ways to use the commander, like re-using Mosswort Bridge a bunch of times, keeping around Glacial Chasm longer than you should while still being able to attack, bouncing a BFZ MDFC land to play the spell side, creating some tokens with Khalni Garden, or enabling several activations of Gaea's Cradle per turn. So just on their own Mina and Denn can make our lands a lot more hostile.

Grow Supermassive

Grow Supermassive

The strategy of the deck is all about growing out of proportion out of nowhere: unpredictability and big tempo-swing plays. I want to make people think it’s quiet, and then suddenly turn their worlds upside down. To keep the deck unpredictable and to end up with a deck that keeps surprising to play, I included many different possible paths to victory:

  • There are some cards that deal Damage Over Time (DOT) that can deal massive damage with all the lands moving around, like Omnath, Locus of Rage, Valakut Exploration and Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle.
  • Several land-related cards generate tokens, like Greensleeves, Maro-Sorcerer, Scute Swarm or Avenger of Zendikar. These tokens bring fuel for the Cradle and contribute to the DOT category through cards like Terror of the Peaks and Purphoros, God of the Forge. But they can also take out a player by surprise through an Overrun-like spell.
  • Gaea's Cradle is just absurd with Mina and Denn's second ability, especially when you can combine it with the landfall token makers, enabling explosive turns. Mosswort Bridge combined with Amulet of Vigor is also very potent.
  • Scapeshift and Reshape the Earth can completely turn the tide or even win you the game with the proper supporting cards. Of course there are the Valakut lines, where you search for Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and a lot of mountains. Then each mountain ETB'ing will trigger Valakut's ability, even if your mountain count before Scapeshift wasn't 5 or more. Even better, if you already had Valakut in play, you can get Vesuva instead and get double the damage (Valakut is not legendary). You can also throw Field of the Dead into the mix for more shennenigans. Casting Scapeshift at 10+ lands means you can get Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, 6+ mountains, Gaea's Cradle, Field of the Dead and Glacial Chasm. A one-sided board wipe, 10 2/2 zombies, a strong defense and massive ramp? Not bad for 4 mana.
  • Genesis Wave is a similar game-ender here that can cause an even bigger tidal wave of triggers. It’s pretty easy with the Cradle to get a wave where X is 30+. Then, because all cards enter at the same time, lands entering are also going to trigger newly entered landfall cards. And if we hit any DOT effects cards like Terror of the Peaks and Purphoros, God of the Forge, they will see each creature entering the battlefield with the wave.
  • Hate spells on a land like Strip Mine and Blast Zone with land recursion, as well as M&D + one or more Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle provide the deck with reusable board control options.
  • That board control can be enhanced with the deck’s defenses. The incidental life gain and protective lands like Glacial Chasm and Spires of Orazca   enable the deck to suddenly turn very defensive as well.
  • Ancient Greenwarden allows for many crazy combinations with landfall cards and extra land drops, switching our engines into a higher gear. This guy opens up a lot of new play patterns and winning combinations.
  • Currently also testing Kodama of the East Tree, which can turn the engines into overdrive by creating infinite landfall triggers with a landfall token maker and Gruul Turf.
  • Then, we also run the Thespian's Stage + Dark Depths combo. Activating Thespian stage on Dark Depths will spawn Marit Lage, who could really use trample ;) (you will lose both lands though).

The amount of different possible ways to become threatening make the deck a lot of fun to pilot. It's great to discover the potential of the more unlikely combinations (Amulet of Vigor + Scapeshift shenanigans into Splendid Reclamation into Genesis Wave all in one turn O_o'). I just love being surprised by what your deck can do.

Valakut

The tutor suite helps with getting that additional "volatile element" in play right away and making these plays a little more consistently. To be given certain pieces and figuring out what additional card will make the situation escalate most is exciting and different each game.

Cycling Through

This deck is very hungry for cards as we try to put a lot of lands into play fast in order to play increasingly more spells as the game goes on. So like in loam-based decks, I wanted to have a solid suite of cards that would enable me to cycle through the deck at a rapid and consistent pace and just draw a bunch of cards (also, I just hate it to have a ramped out deck with nothing left in hand to use all that mana for).

CoW

Big part of finding the right cards was balancing the ratio between draw spells and land fetch spells to sort of mimic the the loam draw engine (LFTM + 3 cycling lands) and get the right consistency. The many land-related two-for-ones, like Cultivate and Thaumatic Compass   are great for this purpose, as well as landfall cards that draw, like Horn of Greed and Valakut Exploration. Together, these are great for mimicking the loam engine and for making this deck run smoothly.

There used to be a section explaining the cards selected, but since I stopped updating it, it felt better to remove it.

Additional Information

This section provides some more background information about the commander, the inteded power level and my meta.

With the wealth of possible lands matter commanders, including The Gitrog Monster, Omnath, Locus of Rage, Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Borborygmos Enraged, Tatyova, Benthic Druid and Titania, Protector of Argoth, why choose Mina and Denn?

Mina and Denn

What I like most about Mina and Denn is that they emphasize the lands themselves. If you look at Omnath, Locus of Rage or Tatyova, Benthic Druid for example, your lands make them do something cool, while both the abilities of Mina and Denn, Wildborn make your lands do something cool instead. Mina and Denn allow you to build a deck that is all about the lands themselves, showcasing all the amazing non-basics of your choosing.

Other advantages of M&D include:

  • Their abilities are great with landfall.
  • They are ramp in the command zone, which is great for any lands matter deck.
  • They are often underestimated and are not likely to draw out removal.
  • They come out early.
  • Because of their cost and stats they have good lines of play with lands matter staples such as Sakura-Tribe Elder and Hour of Promise.
  • Their two abilities together basically say: ": untap your Gaea's Cradle".
  • They lend themselves well to run Valakut Combo, because they can add 2 triggers per turn on their own.
  • Having easy access to trample is a nice perk to have.

These considerations have been guiding in my card selection. They help determine priority when deciding between different cards:

Immediate Effect & Unpredictability

I wanted this deck to be unpredictable. This translated to selecting cards that have immediate effect over cards that telegraph your intentions to the table.

An example of a much played card that telegraphs in this way is Beastmaster Ascension. It's a strong card, but unless you are attacking with 7 the same turn you cast it, it also makes very clear what's coming. This can be an incentive for the table to view you as a threat, giving them more chances to mitigate your attack. I'd rather pay one more mana and run Triumph of the Hordes - or in this list Natural Order into Craterhoof Behemoth - for my overrun cards as those come out of nowhere all of the time. Your attack is not telegraphed in the way that ascension often does.

Another example would be Nissa, Vital Force. It does not do much right away (her +1 is not relevant in edh imo unless you have Cradle out), and the strength of her ultimate could be an incentive for the table to pick you as the prime target. I dislike these type of cards in edh multiplayer, as they often make you threatening to others before you receive any value from them.

Other examples in this category include Scute Mob, Dragonmaster Outcast and Elvish Reclaimer.

By refraining from running these type of cards, we retain more control over when we become threatening; when we're ready to make our move.

Balancing Aggression and Resilience

I wanted this deck not just to be aggressive only. I wanted it to have considerable defensive capabilities as well. With life landfall, and the defensive utility lands, the land dance of the deck can also lead to an explosive defense.

Landfall VS Land Recursion

When starting out with this deck, I wanted lands to flow from all zones and providing value with each transition. However, Mina and Denn, Wildborn work best with lands entering and leaving the battlefield. They want us to have a lot of lands in hand, and do not synergize with lands the graveyard. This made me increase the landfall and reduce the emphasis on the graveyard over time.

Ramp & Consistency

The land genre of decks provide a lot of big and expensive ramp spells like Boundless Realms, Traverse the Outlands, Animist's Awakening and Genesis Wave. However, these cards do not ramp into your commander, and do not increase the consistency of the deck. For this reason I have stopped counting "ramp" cards that are more expensive than the commander as actual ramp. We will always need a certain number ramp cards that help us get into the game and make the deck run smoothly. Cards like Cultivate and Nature's Lore might be a bit boring in comparison to Boundless Realms, but are vital components for this deck to work consistently.

Basic Lands & Basic Land Ramp

Another consideration for big ramp spells is the balance between the amount of basic lands you run, and the amount of cards that ramp for basics. There are so many amazing non-basic lands that shine in a deck like this that I want to run, that I had little room for basics. If that is the path you choose as well, you can't run too many ramp cards that fetch basics as you are going to run out of them rather fast. This is another reason for me to be modest with the big basic land ramp spells (which is why Boundless Realms is not in the list).

Valakut & Mountain Count

Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle is a great asset to this deck, and a big reason to keep this deck 2-colored. Although not eliminating opponents as often as in Modern, it weaponizes our lands to control the board, especially with our commander, and turns Scapeshift into a one-sided board wipe. This ability is enhanced when you can pair it with Vesuva or Thespian's Stage. To make Valakut work though, we need a certain number of Mountains. I settled on 9 as a minimum. This constraint, as well as the one from the last chapter, make this mana base very tight. Non-basic lands have to be well worth their spot to run as much as any non-land would.

Green Meanies Matter

In this deck I wanted to run some powerful green creatures matter cards: Natural Order, Green Sun's Zenith and Regal Force. For these cards to be worthwhile, I tried not to run many red creatures and also to run green token makers primarily.

Confused

These are some of the cards that I have tested or that I've been asked about in the past. Here are the reasons why I'm not running them, at least at the moment :). Also check the build considerations if you are interested what has guided my decision making.

Because they are too slow / put a target on your head before you receive value from them:

  • Dragonmaster Outcast & Scute Mob: Just too slow and a bit too greedy. Doesn't give you anything when you play it, except a higher threat level.
  • Elvish Reclaimer: Takes 3 turns before you can use the land you want. That is too slow for what I want with this deck.
  • Nissa, Vital Force: This is a real a gamble of a card. What's certain is that your threat level will increase greatly. What is not sure is if you will draw any cards from it. That gamble doesn't fit my play style for this deck. Also fits in the next category.

Because they are not reliable in what they do:

  • Realms Uncharted: Only gets you the land you want guaranteed with land recursion.
  • Tempt with Discovery: Sometimes you might get lucky and get 4 lands, but most of the time I would get only one, ór my opponents do what they shóuld do and search for a strip mine and destroy the one land I actually wanted to get. The point is that there is no way to tell what you will get and I prefer reliability in my tutors.

Because I value the lands that I am running over these ones, and there is no more room :)

  • Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse: ETB tapped < ETB untapped
  • Hanweir Battlements    : A haste enabler on a land can be quite strong. However, I did not use it as much in the end.
  • Prismatic Vista, Fabled Passage: I prefer regular fetches in this build.
  • Kessig Wolf Run: A loved card that might get back in the list someday, but I'm using the spot to play something else atm.
  • Lotus Field: I run this land in a lot of decks, but here it's not as great as I want to have a high lands count and don't run as much recursion.
  • Tranquil Thicket and Forgotten Cave: valuable in any land deck, but I wanted to try out the ZNR DFC lands in their stead. These also give you access to another card, and have better synergy with M&D.
  • Yavimaya Hollow: Yes, a great contender to have in this deck as well. However, I did not think it was necessary in this list.

Because it's not as good or synergistic as the cards included that compete for the spot:

  • Animist's Awakening: Just way worse than Genesis Wave
  • Augur of Autumn: A great card, but I still prefer Courser of Kruphix over this and Radha, Heart of Keld in this deck. I value the life gain Courser can provide over the coven clause. I’m not running thát many creature cards (to either unlock the coven ability or to make use of it). Also, there will be more times where casting the creature that’s on top of the library is not the right play compared to playing a land that’s on top (so even if we hit the requirements and we find a creature on top, I expect I won’t always make use of it). On the other hand, not having to reveal the top card to other players has value as well, but that's not a big concern for me currently.
  • Akoum Hellkite & Tunneling Geopede: Got cut. They did not have a high enough impact. Purphoros is way better.
  • Beast Within: I am testing Nature's Claim in its stead atm.
  • Borborygmos Enraged & Seismic Assault: I like these effects, but the deck evolved away from them. I figured if I want those effects, I should just build a Borborygmos deck instead.
  • Boundless Realms: Doesn't gel well with the low basics count, and I prefer Genesis Wave and Traverse the Outlands as similar cards.
  • Chord of Calling: Finale of Devastation is better at finding Dryad Arbor in the early game and is more versatile overall.
  • Decimate: I prefer Force of Vigor.
  • Eternal Witness: Great in decks where you can get its effect twice, but this is not that deck. Bala Ged Recovery   is the better alternative here imo.
  • Explore: Often only drew me a card, because M&D would have emptied my hand already, or I did not have enough lands in my opening hand.
  • Exploration: Doesn't do a lot for the deck spot, as we already get our commander to do it. It's very useful, but not required. I prefer exploration-effect-cards that have another effect stapled onto it, like Oracle of Mul Daya and Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
  • Garruk, Primal Hunter: A card that matches our themes quite well and was in the deck for a long time. After watching an episode of the EDHreccast I realized that I was overpaying for this card, as I hardly ever used anything but the draw ability. Return of the Wildspeaker is less taxing in terms of mana cost, has a more relevant 2nd mode and is an instant.
  • Krosan Tusker: a card I used to run for a long time. I like it, but Valakut Exploration has taken its place.
  • Life from the Loam: a hard cut, as this card was so iconic in the extended deck that inspired this list. I cut it to make room for Ancient Greenwarden, as in M&D we do not get to experience great benefits from self-mill.
  • Maze of Ith: I like Thaumatic Compass   just a little bit better in this list.
  • Moraug, Fury of Akoum: When this came out, I read a lot of reactions that are common when new cards come out, like "This goes into every lands matter deck". I think people are overreacting most of the time when that is said, and I think that also applies here. The important question with Moraug is: how good are multiple attack phases if you don't have any good attacks? Moraug is really cool, don't get me wrong, but I think you need to run it in an aggro deck. This deck is more of a synergy or system deck. We don't run that many beefy creatures, so getting the right setup for Moraug to be good, requires a relatively large amount of effort. And we're probably already winning in that situation anyway. I've put it in my Samut deck instead.
  • Nesting Dragon: An amazing landfall card that generates tokens that are very resilient to board wipes. However, since they aren't green tokens, they don't synergize with my green creatures subtheme.
  • Nissa's Pilgrimage: I prefer Cultivate and Kodama's Reach as they also fix.
  • Nissa, Vastwood Seer  : Was in the deck for a long time, but got the axe when we got Tireless Provisioner.
  • Oran-Rief Hydra & Undergrowth Champion: Just big beatsticks, which is not good in EDH imo. I chose tutoring for a better landfall creature instead.
  • Pir's Whim: Got cut for Hour of Promise as that has a better play pattern with M&D and Field of the Dead.
  • Primeval Bounty: I long thought this was one of the better green landfall cards around. ZNR has pushed him out of that league though.
  • Realm Seekers: It's not bad, but it's a bit too slow for my taste.
  • Retreat to Kazandu: I think this is a solid landfall card, but it has gotten outclassed.
  • Rubblehulk: A pretty cool combat trick that is really surprising, but I decided to go for higher synergy over one-off effects.
  • Scavenging Ooze: I replaced this with Endurance.
  • Seer's Sundial: too costly imo. There are better draw options in Gruul.
  • Skyshroud Claim or other 4cmc ramp: they don't match with the cmc of M&D.
  • Splendid Reclamation: A hard cut when making room for new goodies.
  • Sol Ring: In this deck it's synergy over everything. Even Sol ring ;). It's a mana source that is not a land!
  • Sylvan Scrying: The other land tutors are better imo, and I have no more spots.
  • Terastodon: great with a card like Natural Order but a bit clunky without. Still a solid option if you're looking for flexible spot removal, albeit a bit expensive mana-wise.
  • Traverse the Outlands: I love this card. It's a Soul's Majesty for lands, for 5 mana, curving out greatly with M&D. This means we are probably getting 4 lands (twice as many lands than Explosive Vegetation, for 1 more mana) at minimum. However, it was pushd out of the list to test Reshape the Earth, as that is basically a second scapeshift.
  • World Breaker: Becomes valuable if your games go long, but I hardly find myself playing the long game with this deck.
  • Vandalblast: Great option, but I went with Collector Ouphe for now.
  • Yavimaya Elder: Got cut for Nylea's Intervention. I like the elder, but you often just end up paying 5 mana to draw 3, which is not superb. Intervention can get us any lands, but can still have a similar effect at 3 mana if we really need more lands by searching for Gruul Turf and is a lot better afterwards.

Because it's only really good with another card, but mediocre when you don't have that card:

  • Abundance: Great with Sylvan Library, over-costed without.
  • Prismatic Omen: Amazing with Scapeshift/Valakut, unnecessary without.
  • Wrenn and Six: Only really good with an early fetch in this list, and they don't scale with more land drops as the crucible and the excavator do.

Because I just don't really like the card in my playgroup:

Because my meta doesn't warrant their inclusion:

Because it breaks the immersion:

With this deck I hope I have taken Mina and Denn, a commander that is usually reserved for fun casual builds, and explored the ways how to push this duo to a higher power. I had no constraints for myself in this process except that I did not want to include many infinite combos with this build. It has turned out to be a very synergistic, consistent and unpredictable deck.

Category (Jank - Low - Mid - High - Competitive)
Mid/High

I play commander with a set playgroup in a kitchentable setting. We have added one house rule: no infinite card combo's of 2 or less cards (like Tooth and Nail based combo's). We also try to keep a check on excessive stax or denial strategies. This usually enables that everyone has a chance to try out their creations and have some fun.

What's interesting about my meta though is that blue is quite underplayed. This is why I still haven't added cards like Boseiju, Who Shelters All to the deck. There are quite some graveyard-based decks and thus quite a lot of graveyard hate. This makes it so I did not want to depend on the graveyard for my strategy.

Since this is still my favorite deck to play, this has also become the one deck that I want to fully bling out. Currently all cards are either foil or altered. These were my aims in this process:

  • Art over treatment: For this deck I prioritize art over the treatment. Either because the art is more on theme with Gruul Zendikar (like Crucible of Worldsfoil and Crop Rotation > Crop Rotation) or just because I like the art better (like Lotus Cobra > Lotus Cobrafoil or my choices of fetch lands).
  • Non-lands in normal borders: I want the lands to be the cards that pop, so for the non-lands I'm not running extended art or full art versions. It's also a good rule to stop pimping somewhere, because there's always going to be the next crazier variant... So normal (modern) borders for non-lands is the guideline. I also like the result of that choice that most cards in this deck have the same look.
  • DCI, FNM and pre-release promo's: I really like these categories of foils, so for many cards I went for these versions.
Taiga
This has become my favorite deck to play. Please do not hesitate to leave a comment and letting me know your thoughts. Also, feel free to upvote the deck if you liked it and thanks for checking it out!
Upvote & Support This Primer!
GL & HF
Beebles

Suggestions

Updates Add

Fully Foil — Aug. 15, 2023
Edit

With the printing of Deflecting Swat in Foil, after many years of collecting, every card in this deck is now either Foil or Altered :).

Small Dominaria United Updates — Aug. 28, 2022
Edit
Midnight Hunt Update — Sept. 11, 2021
Edit
MH2 Update — June 2, 2021
Edit
Commander Legends — Nov. 3, 2020
Edit
Supermassive Zendikar Update! — Sept. 9, 2020
Edit
Halfway Zendikar Rising Spoilers — Sept. 5, 2020
Edit
M21 & Jump Start Contenders — July 1, 2020
Edit
THB Update + IKO — Jan. 4, 2020
Edit
Gifts from M20 — June 18, 2019
Edit
Modern Horizons — June 5, 2019
Edit
Kill your darlings — May 17, 2019
Edit
Some cards that “sparked” my interest — April 17, 2019
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Primer — Aug. 17, 2018
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CMD 2018 Changes — Aug. 1, 2018
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Core 19 — June 25, 2018
Edit
The icing on the cake — May 23, 2018
Edit
Rivals of Ixalan — Jan. 19, 2018
Edit
Scapeshift + Splendid reclamation — Nov. 22, 2017
Edit
Commander 2017 — Aug. 13, 2017
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Another Land Weapon — July 30, 2017
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Ramunap Alterations — June 18, 2017
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Nice results — April 20, 2017
Edit
Feb. 11, 2017
Edit
First experiences... — Dec. 17, 2016
Edit
Is it a black hole or... — Nov. 14, 2016
Edit
Getting closer to a V1 list — Nov. 11, 2016
Edit

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Revision 197 See all

(3 weeks ago)

+1 Mole Man, Moloid Master main