An Explosive Start
Bolting with Mountains— Classic
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle illustrated by Kieran Yanner
Season 10 is looking to be truly fantastic. 18 players showed up with a diverse selection of creative decks, but only one walked away with the reroll ticket-- congrats to Nikolay “Pikolay” playing Valakut Landfall! The goal of the deck is to quickly ramp to five mountains with Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle in play. From then on, each land ramp spell represents three to six damage per Valakut in play. This can stabilize the board against creature strategies if needed before inevitably burning out the opponent.
Powering Up Valakut
Ramp speeds things up, finds what’s needed, and eventually becomes burn
Through ramp, this deck gets Valakut online quickly and consistently. Khalni Heart Expedition and Harrow search for Mountains directly, with the latter even able to replace basic Forest so the non-Mountain doesn’t slow down the Valakut plan. While Lotus Cobra doesn’t get Mountains into play itself, it allows you to chain ramp spells as early as turn three, including Hour of Promise. Unlike the other ramp spells, Hour can tutor Valakut directly into play. Oath of Nissa further increases consistency by finding Cobra early, Valakut if it’s missing, or one of the nine value creatures.
Continuous Triggers through Creatures
These creatures represent card advantage, resiliency and inevitability
Ramunap Excavator keeps mountains coming turn after turn by grabbing lands sacrificed to Harrow or any of the nine Fetches they play. It keeps the deck resilient to Gerrard’s Verdict forcing land discards and Vindicate on the titular card. Oracle of Mul Daya and Ramunap Excavator support each other, as the Oracle allows the Excavator to pick up multiple lands from the graveyard and the Excavator can pick up fetches to alter the top card of the library for additional looks at a land. Mina and Denn, Wildborn is similar to Oracle, but can also protect Valakut and guarantee land drops with its activated ability.
Conclusion
Mountain (Zendikar) illustrated by Véronique Meignaud
Much of people’s excitement around Season 10 has been related to the manabase. Fetches with Triomes open a lot of doors, including making a lethal Valakut deck possible where it hadn’t been previously. With all the buzz and possibilities, it only seems fitting that a Lands deck took the prize on the first week. Congrats again to Nikolay for their victory.
