What happens when you try to combine a selesnya landfall deck with the long-ass uninteractive turns of eggs while jamming in an infinite combo? Apparently this.
The Gameplan
This deck's basic gameplan is to first create as many landfall triggers and lands in the graveyard with fetches, Quarter + Trokair, Harrow, Knight of the Reliquary. Once you're going off with your lands, Faith's Reward recurs them back untapped (this is very important) so you can recycle them again. Lotus Cobra generates lots of rainbow mana while all this is happening, which allows you to cast Tatyova, Benthic Druid and generate tons of card advantage. Retreat to Coralhelm is the main engine that allows you to create infinite landfall triggers with Ruin Ghost or keep making one mana each time you activate it with Knight of the Reliquary as long as you have lands in your deck to fetch. It can also do some digging duty when necessary.
Once you have Lotus Cobra and Tatyova for mana and card draw, you can use Faith's Reward or Coralhelm + Reliquary to draw enough to get Ruin Ghost into play (if you don't already have it). To give it haste, just fetch Hanweir Battlements
with Reliquary. After that, you generate infinite landfall triggers to draw your deck and cast Thassa's Oracle to win the game. If you manage to make a ridiculous amount of mana with Lotus Cobra and the land engines, but don't have Tatyova for draw, you can cast Genesis Wave for a large amount to keep it going (make sure not to mill yourself by accident if you get multiple Tatyovas and too many lands in play).
Combos/Other Lines and Interactions
Ruin Ghost + Retreat to Coralhelm: Tap a plains or Flagstones of Trokair for mana, then activate Ruin Ghost to flicker the land back untapped. Untap Ruin Ghost with the landfall trigger from Coralhelm, repeat indefinitely for infinite landfall triggers.
Knight of the Reliquary + Retreat to Coralhelm: By tapping each land before sacrificing it with Knight of the Reliquary, this combo makes mana as long as you have lands left in your deck, and can also fetch needed lands like Hanweir Battlements
. Since this combo isn't indefinite like the Ruin Ghost one, usually its used to either generate more landfall triggers to hope to draw into the first combo with Tatyova or make enough mana with Lotus Cobra to cast a huge Genesis Wave and continue the combo. Getting a fetch and then cracking it for an extra landfall trigger at the cost of 1 life allows you to get two landfall triggers instead of 1, and also lets you scry 1 with Coralhelm.
Sakura-Tribe Scout + Retreat to Coralhelm: Lets us dump all the lands in our hand onto the battlefield. Although it's usually just a helpful synergy, if we fizzle with our storm (as in getting a bunch of mana and cards in our hand but we ran out of lands in our deck) we can use this to dump our hand and trigger more landfalls, hopefully drawing into a Ruin Ghost.
Sunscorched Desert + Lotus Cobra + Ruin Ghost + Retreat to Coralhelm: A secondary combo for infinite damage by flickering Sunscorched Desert and paying for the ability with mana from Lotus Cobra. Having a colorless land is a bit straining on the manabase for a three color deck so we usually have to fetch our singleton desert with the trusty knight.
Idyllic Grange + Ruin Ghost + Retreat to Coralhelm: Another combo, this one not requiring Lotus Cobra since the grange makes white mana. Although it's not a surefire win, it does give all of your creatures as many +1/+1 counters as you want, plus the needed land is a lot easier to fetch.
Hanweir Battlements
: Gives Ruin Ghost haste when drawn into, can also be fetched by Knight of the Reliquary and give it haste as well.
Sakura-Tribe Scout + Retreat to Coralhelm + Selesnya Sanctuary: Also gives you infinite landfall triggers, but I didn't want to take up many land slots, so I only put one bounceland which needs to be fetched with Knight of the Reliquary as another backup combo. Works by using Sakura to put Selesnya Sanctuary on the battlefield and Sanctuary bouncing itself, untap STS with Coralhelm, activate its ability again to put Selesnya Sanctuary on the field, rinse and repeat.
Plan B
This deck basically has only one plan B besides comboing off or storming off into a combo: giant Knight of the Reliquary beatdown. Flickering Idyllic Grange with Ruin Ghost can help buff creatures, and Retreat to Coralhelm can be used to tap down our opponents creatures to let our attackers through or to prevent them from attacking.
Turn 2 Win
“But zappppppp I came here for the turn 2 win this is scam how can you even win turn 2 with landfall?” Don’t worry my homesliced breadsliced amigos, there is a turn 2 win, but it’s a little convoluted, so prepare yourself.
Disclaimer: I have never gotten a turn 2 win with this deck, but I have gotten turn 3 several times.
Needed Cards:
1
producing land
Two fetch lands
Sakura-Tribe Scout
Lotus Cobra
Harrow
Faith's Reward
On the play:
Genesis Wave (Note: this works for on the draw as well)
On the draw:
Tatyova, Benthic Druid,
Faith's Reward (second copy)
Note: Of course there are other combinations of cards that can win on turn 2 (all of them absurdly rare), but the
Sakura-Tribe Scout +
Lotus Cobra +
Harrow +
Faith's Reward combination is essentially required for it to work. Instead of two fetches, using
Flagstones of Trokair and
Ghost Quarter will net you 7 mana instead of 8 mana after the first
Faith's Reward step. Using a fetch and sacrificing a
Flagstones to cast
Harrow only nets you 6 mana. These both still work with the
Faith's Reward into
Tatyova, Benthic Druid line, but the 6 mana option basically requires that you topdeck
Harrow.
(Note: This is actually wrong because I thought the basic from Ghost Quarter entered tapped, so the Flagstones+Quarter case actually probably gives you at least 9 mana, which allows you to cast Tatyova before Faith's Reward in the first step of the on the draw scenario. I'm too lazy to work it all out now though)
Turn 1:
Play any land that can produce
, cast
Sakura-Tribe Scout. Your opponent probably thinks you’re playing amulet titan or something, but they have no idea what’s comin’. Unless they bolt your scout. Then you’re screwed.
Turn 2:
Play your first fetch, crack it, cast
Lotus Cobra.
Tap
Sakura-Tribe Scout to bring in the second fetch, then crack it. This gives you two landfall triggers off
Lotus Cobra plus the untapped land itself. (floating 3 mana)
Cast
Harrow targeting a random land, fetch two basics, then tap the basics for mana. Time for some solitaire. (floating 4 mana)
Cast
Faith's Reward, returning both fetch lands plus the third land to the battlefield, giving you 3 mana from
Lotus Cobra. Crack the fetch lands for two more landfall triggers, plus the three mana from the three lands. You now have access to 8 mana on turn 2. Your opponent is probably shitting their pants now. Be nice and give them some popcorn: they’re gonna need it.
On the play:
Cast
Genesis Wave for X=5. If you get a
Hanweir Battlements
,
Retreat to Coralhelm,
Tatyova, Benthic Druid, and a
Ruin Ghost/
Knight of the Reliquary (somehow) you can proceed to the “winning the game” step below. If you don’t, then hopefully you can at least get
Tatyova and a bunch of lands for card draw + mana and then start rolling through your deck. If you don’t get either of these, then you just fail. It’s okay though, you’ll get ‘em next turn! Unless they have removal, in which case you just got owned.
On the draw:
Cast your second
Faith's Reward, bringing back the two fetches, then cast
Tatyova, Benthic Druid. Crack both fetches to give you two more mana and two cards (crack them one at a time, because if you topdeck
Retreat to Coralhelm you should play it first before cracking the other). As an alternative, you can cast
Tatyova first and then cast
Harrow, which also gives you two landfall triggers which means two card draws.
This is now the riskiest part of the turn. You only have two cards in hand, and you need to make sure you don’t fizzle. If you somehow topdecked
Retreat to Coralhelm, cast it, since you want it down with your next landfall trigger to untap
Sakura-Tribe Scout. Else, hopefully you drew another
Harrow or
Faith's Reward to keep the fun going.
You should now be in a decent position to storm off: a
Lotus Cobra,
Tatyova, Benthic Druid, at least two lands put into the graveyard this turn (which can also put themselves into the graveyard), plus a bunch of mana and a few cards in your hand. If you have it, untap
Sakura-Tribe Scout with
Retreat to Coralhelm. If you draw into
Hanweir Battlements
and
Ruin Ghost/
Knight of the Reliquary, that’s great: go on to the “winning the game” step. Else, keep storming off by casting
Harrow for more draw or
Faith's Reward to recur the lands in your graveyard. If you have
Retreat to Coralhelm, dump all lands from your hand onto the battlefield with the
Sakura-Tribe Scout +
Coralhelm combo and then refill your hand with
Tatyova.
Maybe your opponent has a response. Luckily, you can
Harrow or
Faith's Reward at instant speed to untap whatever creatures you have and continue the storming (or crack another fetch at instant speed). Maybe your opponent
Krosan Grips your
Retreat to Coralhelm. Don’t worry, everything’s still fine: our boy
Faith has got your back.
Winning the game:
Cast
Ruin Ghost or
Knight of the Reliquary, then tap
Sakura-Tribe Scout to bring in
Hanweir Battlements
and give it haste. Ask your opponent how they’re enjoying the popcorn.
If you have
Knight of the Reliquary, cycle through all the lands in your deck until you draw into a
Ruin Ghost. “But zap,
Ruin Ghost doesn’t have haste and I already tapped my
Hanweir Battlements
!” Don’t worry man everything’s gucci. Just sacrifice it to
Harrow or destroy it with
Ghost Quarter, then recur it with
Faith's Reward. Voila! Untapped
Battlements
.
Now activate the
Ruin Ghost +
Retreat to Coralhelm combo, draw your deck with
Tatyova, and win with the
fish.
Even though it can sometimes feel like solitaire, this deck is always a blast to play when it works out (which is more than you might expect), and it can frequently pull a win seemingly out of nowhere. I hope you liked it, and any suggestions are welcome.
(Hyped for zendikar rising btw, maybe it'll give us some new jank engines)
Maybeboard
Khalni Heart Expedition/Ior Ruin Expedition: Can be recurred with Faith's Reward and either give us more fuel or more landfall triggers (Tip: You can cast Faith's Reward in response to the second trigger on Khalni Heart Expedition to bring it back (since sacrificing it is part of the cost) and then immediately put two more quest counters on it.
Omnath, Locus of the Roil: Suboptimal secondary draw engine after Tatyova
Omnath, Locus of Creation: New interesting card but probably a crappier Lotus Cobra that can keep us alive a little longer
Splendid Reclamation: Although useful the lands entering tapped really hurts this card a lot, which is why I run Faith's Reward instead
Valakut Exploration: A 3-mana draw engine that gives us straight gas and also doubles as a wincon, but requires four colors (already difficult since we can't run too many fetches), also we can't drop lands exiled with it using Sakura-Tribe Scout
