Deck Idea: Moonfolk and Landfall

Landfall: An ability triggered whenever “a land enters the battlefield under your control.”

Moonfolk: A creature type from the Kamigawa block. They offer abilities for the cost of both colorless mana and returning lands you control to your hand for activation. An example is Meloku the Clouded Mirror, a legendary Moonfolk Wizard with the ability: “(1) Return a land you control to its owner’s hand: Put a 1/1 blue illusion creature token with flying into play.”

At this point the synergy should be fairly obvious. Landfall grants bonuses when lands come into play, Moonfolk return lands to your hand to use abilities, allowing you to drop the lands again to get the landfall bonuses.

All Moonfolk are blue, so that should be the main color focus of the deck. However, green makes for an excellent addition due having a large assortment of cards that make it easier to drop lands more frequently. They also offer some of the strongest landfall abilities.

Let’s take a look at a pretty strong potential combo for this deck.

1. Meloku the Clouded Mirror – (U)(4) – Legendary Creature, Moonfolk Wizard – 2/4, Flying, (1) Return a land you control to its owner’s hand: Put a 1/1 blue illusion token with flying into play.
2. Fastbond – (G) – Enchantment – You may put as many lands into play as you want each turn. Fastbond does 1 damage to you for every land beyond the first that you play in a single turn.
3. Rampaging Baloths – (G)(G)(4) – 6/6 Trample, Landfall: Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, you may put a 4/4 green Beast creature token onto the battlefield.

Assuming you have 6 lands in play in order to play the Boloths, that means you can drop 6 1/1 flying illusion tokens in one turn, and next turn you can get 6 4/4 beast tokens onto the battlefield by using Fastbond’s ability. Here’s another good one with Meloku.

1. Meloku the Clouded Mirror – (U)(4) – Legendary Creature, Moonfolk Wizard – 2/4, Flying, (1) Return a land you control to its owner’s hand: Put a 1/1 blue illusion token with flying into play.
2. Tideforce Elemental – (U)(2) – Creature, Elemental – 2/1, (U)(T): You may tap or untap another target creature. Landfall: whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, you may untap Tideforce Elemental.
3. Walking Atlus – (2) – Artifact Creature, Construct – 1/1 (T): You may put a land card from your hand onto the battlefield.
4. High Tide – (U) – Instant – Until end of turn, all Islands produce an additional (U) when tapped for mana.

Play high tide. Tap an island, you have two U mana floating around. Use one to activate Meloku’s ability, giving you a 1/1 flying illusion token, and returning the land to your hand. Use Walking Atlus to return the land to play, then use extra U mana to activate Tideforce’s ability to untap the Walking Atlus. Tap the island again for two U mana, rinse and repeat for infinite 1/1 flying illusion tokens. Want something more basic? Here’s a pretty easy combo to set up that let’s you bypass an enemy’s defenses.

1. Sakura-Tribe Scout – (G) – Creature,  Snake Shaman Scout – 1/1, (T): You may put a land card from your hand into play.
2. Hedron Scrambler – (1) – Artifact Creature, Construct – Landfall: Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, Hedron Scrambler gets +1/+1.
3. Soratami Mirror-Guard – (U)(3) – Creature, Moonfolk Wizard – 3/1 Flying, (2) Return a land you control to owner’s hand, target creature with power 2 or less is unblockable this turn.
4. Groundswell – (G) – Instant – Target creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn. Landfall: If you had a land enter the battlefield under your control this turn, that creature gets +4/+4 until end of turn instead.

Use Soratami’s ability to make the measily 1/1 Hedron Scrambler unblockable. Drop the land you just returned using the Tribe-Scout’s ability, the Hedron Scrambler gets +1/+1. Use Groundswell for an additional +4/+4, making for 6 unavoidable damage. Different cards can be swapped in and out with this combo, using Walking Atlus instead of Sakura-Tribe Scout to avoid using green, or use Hedron Rover for more damage (though higher mana cost). Adventuring Gear also works great for this set-up, adding another +2/+2 for each land drop. The combination of returning lands and dropping them again for additional landfall bonuses makes for some interesting combos. It’s too much to list here, but a few more cards that could produce some very interesting combos include Eternity Vessel, Grazing Gladehart, Roil Elemental, Avenger of Zendikar, and Lotus Cobra.

Draw for Epic Power

My favorite combos offer drastically increasing power with  little to no effort once the combo is established. With this particular combo, you’ll begin drawing more and more cards which adds more and more power to your spirits.

1. Overbeing of Myth: (G/U)(G/U)(G/U)(G/U)(G/U) – Creature Spirit Avatar – */* – Overbeing of Myth’s power and toughness are each equal to the number of cards in your hand. At the beginning of your draw step, draw a card.
2. Spellbook: (0) – Artifact – You have no maximum hand size.
3. Followed Footsteps: (U)(U)(3) – Enchantment Aura – Enchant Creature. At the beginning of your upkeep, put a creature token into play that’s a copy of enchanted creature.
4. Words of Wilding: (G)(2) – Enchantment – (1): The next time you would draw a card, place a 2/2 bear creature token into play instead.

Spellbook gives you infinite hand size, Overbeing gets bigger for each card in your hand and makes you draw an additional card each turn. Followed Footsteps creates a new Overbeing each turn, meaning you’ll draw 1 more card each turn you get another Overbeing, and all of them get much bigger with only a few turns. Naturally, there’s a huge risk to milling yourself. Here’s how that works out:

• 1 Overbeing = 2 draws = 2 total
• 2 Overbeing = 3 draws = 5 total
• 3 Overbeing = 4 draws = 9 total
• 4 Overbeing = 5 draws = 14 total
• 5 Overbeing = 6 draws = 20 total
• 6 Overbeing = 7 draws = 27 total
• 7 Overbeing = 8 draws = 35 total

Well, you get the point. Since it quickly becomes easy to self-mill, Words of Wilding comes in handy. Whenever the amount of draws starts to get too extreme, simply use Words of Wilding to prevent a draw and get a 2/2 bear creature token in return. Overwhelm with Overbeings and bear tokens. Words of Wind is another interesting option, as it forces all players to return a permanent to their hands, which would allow you to return the Followed Footsteps to your hand should things get out of control.