Many people got excited when Lord Windgrace was shown off as being a 'lands matter' commander in Jund, and I was no exception to that. Finally, we can play Omnath, Gitrog Monster and Titania all in the same deck! Then the precon got spoiled, and it was disappointing.
That said, the precon deck still gave us a couple of new toys for the 'lands matter' gameplan, while also being a good jumping-off point for upgrading into a competent lands deck. So, after buying a Nature's Vengeance precon and replacing 40 of the cards in it to make it a more focused and generally more powerful deck - and with a plan to replace a few more once I can get the cards - I have here the second EDH deck I've finished in paper form!
What does the deck want to do?
The game plan for this deck is simple: Gain enough incidental advantage from moving lands around between the hand, battlefield and graveyard to be able to overwhelm our opponents.
Windgrace himself forms a big part of the engine of the deck, giving us an outlet that lets us dump lands into the graveyard to draw cards, as well as a way of getting lands back from the graveyard to the battlefield to trigger our Landfall abilities.
The value engines
The most prominent way we turn the land dance into value is through token-makers. Omnath, Locus of Rage is the best among these, a 5/5 himself that produces additional 5/5s every time a land enters the battlefield under our control, and better yet, should an Elemental creature die, Omnath gives us a free bolt to whatever we want. This last ability synergises with other key token generators; Titania, Protector of Argoth, herself an elemental, also makes Elemental tokens whenever a land goes to our graveyard from the battlefield, and Zendikar's Roil also makes Elementals on Landfall, albeit only 2/2s.
For more token swarming from just playing lands, we have Rampaging Baloths, and newbie from C18 Nesting Dragon - the tokens from the dragon being especially nice because they provide a level of insulation from boardwipes - turning weak defenders into a swarm of firebreathing flyers.
Avenger of Zendikar creates tokens as well, then provides a buff to those tokens on landfall; Also creating plants is another newcomer from C18, Turntimber Sower, making little 0/1s when a land goes to our graveyard from anywhere. The Sower also gives a means of returning lands from the graveyard to the hand, as well as a potential sacrifice outlet if we really need to start churning through Omnath triggers.
Worm Harvest benefits from a graveyard full of land, and having retrace means that it doesn't really matter if the tokens it makes fall victim to a boardwipe.
Tokens are not the only way we win, though. Borborygmos Enraged is a big, dumb beater that lets us pitch lands in our hand to the grave to bolt any problem creatures or just straight to our opponents' faces. If we work up enough lands, we also have Torment of Hailfire, which can be effective at ending games and especially when our opponents are getting low on resources - following up a boardwipe with a big Torment is usually enough to win the game for us. Sylvan Awakening can end games out of nowhere with a swarm of indestructible 2/2s.
Outside of this, there are other sources of value from moving lands around. The Gitrog Monster is the glue that holds Titania and Omnath together here, making us sacrifice a land at every upkeep, but giving us an extra land drop every turn, on top of drawing cards when lands go from anywhere to the graveyard. Nissa, Vital Force can ultimate the turn after she comes down if you really want to, giving us an emblem that draws us cards when lands enter the battlefield.
The bulk of the rest of the deck is ramp and a selection of removal to slow our opponents down.
Future tweaks - the acquire and maybeboards
The Mending of Dominaria takes a couple of turns, but once it reaches chapter III it can give us a lot of landfall triggers and recycle our graveyard, while Azusa, Lost but Seeking and Oracle of Mul Daya give us extra land drops to make the most of our landfall abilities - the Oracle giving the extra benefit of being able to play lands straight from the library.
In terms of the maybeboard, Cabal Coffers is an obvious pairing with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, but the only payoff in this deck for making so much mana, outside of being able to do a lot more in a given turn, is really Torment of Hailfire; given that Coffers is currently a $40 card, I'm not sure it's worth the investment.
Constant Mists and Zuran Orb would give us a means of sacrificing lands to benefit Titania, Gitrog and Turntimber Sower, as well as giving a couple of different buffers from being attacked, while Hammer of Purphoros gives another, slower land sacrifice outlet at the benefit of making yet more tokens and giving our board hate.
Bane of Progress seems like a good inclusion, as the deck has only three artifacts and three enchantments (four if you count Courser of Kruphix), though the card can paint an enormous target on you since you just wiped away everyone's artifacts and enchantments and got a huge creature into the bargain!
Also in the category of 'making the table hate you' would be Strip Mine. With Crucible of Worlds or Ramunap Excavator on the board and any of our number of extra land drop effects, we can start clearing our opponents' boards of lands... which is a good way to make people want to kill you.
World Shaper and Splendid Reclamation both serve a similar function to The Mending of Dominaria, returning lands from the grave to the battlefield en masse to get a ton of landfall triggers, while Exploration is another extra land-drop effect. The only barrier to including this card being its cost - it's been slowly climbing in price for a while now.
Wrap-up
After having played the deck in this form a few times, it's definitely quite a powerful and synergistic package, and there is still more that can be done with it, as there are at least a few tweaks I want to make to this list once I can get the cards to make them. Any feedback, comments and suggestions are much appreciated!
