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The Land(fall) Before Time

Modern Budget Combo Forest Lands RG (Gruul)

Balaam__


Sideboard


Maybeboard

Instant (1)

Sorcery (1)


For the longest time I’ve wanted to construct something around dinosaurs. I was trying to make this deck: The Spiteful Professor and the Penitent Dinosaur, but legendofa beat me to it. Besides, I had been struggling for what felt like ages with each attempt ultimately collapsing. Instead, I gave up and went another direction. I assembled this nifty Landfall combo themed build and was quite pleased with how it turned out. It’s low cost and effective—enjoy!

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Owing to all the moving pieces, this was arguably the hardest part of the build. With Utopia Sprawl and plenty of man-ramp, we could theoretically get away with running less than the otherwise optimal count. But our wincon specifically revolves around lands, unloading both barrels and slamming down as many as possible in rapid succession. This feels like the Goldilocks ratio; not too many, not too few.

•18 Basic Forests make up the majority of the lands here, and for good reason: Ranging Raptors’ Enrage trigger makes it a prerequisite.

•We do run a few Cinder Glade to be extra sure we can pay for our dragon and our wincon, with Utopia Sprawl lending a hand as well.

If watching countless children’s movies growing up has taught me anything, it’s that the real treasure isn’t what lies at the end of the journey—it’s the friends you make along the way. Let’s send out invitations!

Fierce Empath is another means to tutor for Akoum Hellkite and it felt wise to run 2x each instead of just a full play set of the dragon. Our elf here will find its way into play significantly earlier, allowing us to hang onto our dragon until we’re ready for him.

Commune with Dinosaurs helps locate Ranging Raptors if it’s hiding, or at worst lets us grab that land in preparation for our finishing combo.

Commune with Nature is a better version of the previous card, but it seemed wise to run both for more opportunity. Feel free to post a comment if you think it’s overkill.


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If Ranging Raptors takes lethal damage, it breaks the combo. To that end we run a few different ways to make it temporarily invulnerable, enabling it to soak up as much damage as Akoum Hellkite can dish out.

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Fog is pseudo evasion/protection, best used early on while we work on establishing a board presence.

Tamiyo's Safekeeping makes it all but impossible to remove the dinosaurs, and gives us a hearty little bump to our life total too.

Tyvar's Stand is a great card from the latest set. Just pay for and get all the protective power of the previously mentioned card for the same low price!

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The land is falling!


I really like this combo. It occupies a strange no man’s land, not quite infinite but more than a once-and-done affair. The idea is to have both Ranging Raptors and Akoum Hellkite in play, provide the dinosaur with Indestructible, and follow up by playing a basic land.

The Dragon’s Landfall trigger will allow us to target the dinosaur for 1 damage, which will let us search our library for a basic land and put it into play. Which triggers Akoum Hellkite. Which targets Ranging Raptors. Which puts a land in play. Which triggers—ok, you get the picture.

As long as Ranging Raptors does not incur lethal damage (which it handily sidesteps with Indestructible), this chain continues until we either choose to stop (uh, don’t) or until we run out of basic lands to play.

With oodles of mana at our disposal, cast Banefire the following turn for guaranteed lethal damage that cannot be countered.


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•Build out man ramping capabilities

•Acquire and play Ranging Raptors and Akoum Hellkite as early as possible, using tutors or peeking for them

•Cast a protective spell targeting Ranging Raptors

•Aim Akoum Hellkite’s Landfall trigger directly at Ranging Raptors, causing another land to enter the battlefield and thus repeating the process until all lands have been put into play.

•Follow up next turn with an indefensible Banefire for the win.


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Lots of good stuff here, but very modular. Exchange things if your particular playgroup tends to produce specific threats that aren’t accounted for below.

Nourish to quickly recover lost life, a chunk at a time.

Damping Sphere for irritating combo decks, Tron builds, or speedy Gonzales zippity do dah aggro builds that are tough to overcome once they explode onto the table. With our non-land sources of extra mana, the cost to us is negligible.

Soul-Guide Lantern for all things graveyard hate. The potential draw power is nice too.

Pithing Needle shuts down particularly onerous threats you know will appear sooner or later.

Nature's Spiral as a last resort to recall a key combo piece to hand, if something went terribly wrong before we could prevent it.


Regarding the Maybeboard

Harmonize is listed here in case card draw becomes a real issue. I frequently forget green has a draw spell, and I feel it might perform better than red’s typical ‘draw x but discard x’ formula.

Tunneling Geopede is a leftover from an earlier draft of the build. It functions as you think it would, but the issue is that it’s yet another card that needs to be in play before we can capitalize on the combo. It’s also easily removed. I opted for the Banefire finisher instead.

”For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it…”

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92% Casual

Competitive

Revision 1 See all

(1 year ago)

+1 Harmonize maybe
+1 Tunneling Geopede maybe
Top Ranked
  • Achieved #2 position overall 1 year ago
  • Achieved #1 position in Modern 1 year ago
Date added 1 year
Last updated 1 year
Legality

This deck is Modern legal.

Rarity (main - side)

8 - 4 Rares

9 - 5 Uncommons

25 - 6 Commons

Cards 60
Avg. CMC 1.51
Folders Modern, outros, Decks, Deck Ideas, Modern Decks, Cockatrice Decks To Use
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