Commander Top 10: Omnath, Locus Of Creation

Zendikar Rising brings us the fourth incarnation of Omnath: Omnath, Locus of Creation!

It’s kind of interesting to see the evolution of this legendary Elemental over time as it’s added to its color identity:

It makes you wonder if there’s going to be a fifth incarnation of Omnath, adding black so it has all five colors?  My bet is yes, and it will be called Omnath, Locus of Loci.  Omnath will be both a land and a creature, and the set will have a focus on Locus as a card type.

Can they fit Legendary Creature – Elemental Locus on the type line?  Hmmmm, I don’t think so, but they could always add “Omnath, Locus of Loci counts as a Locus” in the text box.

The most recent version of Omnath is quite a powerful card that’s obviously been pushed for tournament formats. I find it interesting though that its landfall trigger has stop-guards, preventing it from triggering more than three times in a single turn, which is probably good in a format like Commander where we can potentially get a lot more landfall triggers.  That said, I think it’s still a really good commander to pull together landfall strategies from four colors into one deck!

Given that earlier versions of Omnath touched on Elemental themes and we’ll probably want the two other than Omnath, Locus of Mana in the deck, it might be a good idea to pepper in some cards that care about that where it makes sense.

These four colors allow us access to some of the best cards in the format, so we’ll definitely want to find room for a lot of them, especially removal spells.

Okay, let’s get brewing!

1. Moraug, Fury of Akoum

Over the years, there have been some great creatures printed with either the landfall keyword or some other ability that triggers from a land being played (Tireless Tracker is a favorite), but Zendikar Rising brings things to an entirely new level with Moraug, Fury of Akoum!  I got to play with this card during a special promotion by Wizards of the Coast (WotC) on Arena for Early Access to post-rotation Standard and the one time I was able to trigger its landfall ability my attacks were devastating. 

I’d like to thank WotC for finally making a truly fierce and frightening Minotaur!  Moraug has a lot going on, so let’s take a look at the rulings from the Zendikar Rising release notes:

I think the important takeaway here is, if you can help it, save your landfall triggers until after your regular attack step to maximize the number of creatures you get to attack with each time.

I’m including a bunch of other great creatures with landfall triggers:

I’m super-excited about Trove Warden from Zendikar Rising’s Commander decks as a nice buffer against mass removal spells; if you tuck away some of the smaller creatures that die, once Trove Warden dies, you’ll immediately get to reestablish your battlefield presence.

2. Valakut Exploration

Creatures aren’t the only permanents that have nice landfall triggers, but one of the best is yet another card from Zendikar Rising—Valakut Exploration!  Even though this is “impulsive draw” I’ve already seen this card cascade landfall triggers while generating an insane amount of value, and each card you don’t play by the end of the turn just goes to the graveyard and domes each of your opponent along the way.  

Just keep in mind that its triggered ability isn’t a “may,” so keep an eye on how many cards you still have in your library.

I’ve included some other juicy enchantments that do fun things with landfall, providing a lot of flexible options:

3. Ancient Greenwarden

I’ve added a bunch of cards to help facilitate landfall triggers outside of just playing lands, and all of them work even better with Ancient Greenwarden on the battlefield, which causes each trigger to trigger again.  Look, we have another all-star from Zendikar Rising!  It even has a Crucible of Worlds stapled to its backside, and don’t overlook its reach ability, shoring up defenses against flyers.

Here are the cards that are going to make us doubly happy when we have Ancient Greenwarden on the battlefield:

4. Radha, Heart of Keld

One of my favorite cards to come out this year is Radha, Heart of Keld and she fits perfectly into any deck that cares about landfall, letting you play lands off the top of your deck for triggers and helping to ensure you draw gas each turn. Plus, Radha’s activated ability makes her an incredibly powerful middle- and late-game attacker.

I’m including some other cards that care about how many lands we have:

Budoka Gardener does a nice job of helping with extra land drops early, and once you hit ten lands it flips, and you can start generating X/X green Elemental creature tokens.

And Ashaya, Soul of the Wild is simply nuts.  If you haven’t read it, check out the deck I built around Ashaya right here, but it’s also really, really good in the 99 of a lot of decks, especially ones that care about landfall like this one.

6. Tatyova, Benthic Druid

To keep the cards flowing and the lands dropping we’ll want some card-drawing in the deck, and Tatyova, Benthic Druid is absurdly powerful in a landfall deck for drawing cards and gaining some life along the way. You’ll probably want to ensure one landfall trigger when you cast Tatyova because most savvy opponents will aim creature removal her way as soon as possible.

Here are some additional ways to keep your hand stocked with action:

I really like that Temur Ascendancy provides your creatures with haste in addition to drawing cards for medium sized creatures and larger.

6. Smokebraider

With two of the Omnath creatures sporting some Elemental synergies, I kept an eye out for some cards that would add to the synergy, and I really love Smokebraider here.  Since our commander is a four-color Elemental, Smokebraider is a great way to ensure you have all the mana you need to cast it, potentially on Turn 3 after you cast Smokebraider the turn before.

And then of course there’s Risen Reef, which makes all your Elementals into Coiling Oracles.  Huzzah!

7. Mother of Runes

Of course, your opponents are going to try and stop your shenanigans or have shenanigans of their own, so we’ll want to pepper in some ways to interact.  First on the list is Mother of Runes, with a tap ability that ties opponents into knots.

There are some really powerful creatures on our list, and if Mother of Runes is active it’s going to be difficult for your opponents to deal with them without dealing with Mother of Runes first.

I’ll round things out with a couple of counterspells, the surprise saves from Heroic Intervention, and the incredible Shadowspear!

8. Supreme Verdict

We’ll also want to make room for creature control, and sometimes battlefields just need to be swept clean, and when that’s needed nothing is quite as good as Supreme Verdict.  When you absolutely, positively have to get all the creatures off the battlefield!

I’m including a few of the other really good removal spells available for creature control too:

9. Broken Bond

This color combination has a lot of ways to destroy things other than creatures, and so I’m finding room for some of those too.  Broken Bond rises to the top due to its ability to destroy an artifact or enchantment and potentially set off another landfall trigger by letting you play another land, which should more than make up for it being a sorcery.

10. Faeburrow Elder

A lot of the cards I mentioned above could count as mana ramp, but I also wanted to find room for a few more just to ensure the mana to cast our big spells.  Faeburrow Elder is at its best in a five-color deck, but a four-color deck is very nearly as good.  Just imagine being on the battlefield alongside Omnath when you get your second landfall trigger—that will be RGWU from Omnath and then Faeburrow can tap to add those colors too.  That is a lot of mana we’re talking about, and you haven’t even tapped your lands yet!

Even though the mana from Sol Ring isn’t helpful the first time Omnath is cast, commander tax is a thing and Omnath is sure to be returned to the command zone a few times in the game. 

Okay, so here’s how the deck ended up:

Here’s how the deck looks graphically, thanks to our friends at Archidekt:

What do you think?  Are there any cards I’ve overlooked?  If you see any new cards from Zendikar Rising that should find a home here, let me know! 

Do me a solid and follow me on Twitter!  I run polls and get conversations started about Commander all the time, so get in on the fun!  I’d also love it if you followed my Twitch channel TheCompleteCommander, where I do a deckbuilding stream every Monday evening, and pepper in some other Commander-related streams when I can.  If you can join me live, the videos are available on demand for a few weeks on Twitch, but I also upload them to my YouTube channel.

And lastly, I just want to say: let us love each other and stay healthy and happy.