Would You Lukk-at That: Exploring All Things Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast

Somehow, Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths has crept up on release without a really deep look at the best planeswalker in the set: Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast.

Normally a planeswalker article would start breaking down each of the abilities one by one, but I’m going to skip the nonsense here. The entire point of Lukka is the -2 ability. The rest of the card just isn’t exciting.

[-2]: Exile target creature you control, then reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a creature card with higher converted mana cost. Put that card onto the battlefield and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.

Drawing some number of cards with the +1 without impacting the battlefield on a five-drop planeswalker just isn’t exciting in a post-War of the Spark world. If you’re asking “but what if it hits two cards,” it’s mathematically unfeasible to average two hits per Lukka activation. That would mean 40 of your 60 cards are creatures. Even with a Collected Company-esque 30 creatures, you completely miss over 10% of the time. You probably want at least 25 creatures in a typical Lukka deck, but I wouldn’t worry too much about maximizing that number.

The ultimate does some approximation of winning the game, but doesn’t do it unless you’re already in good position to win and takes multiple turns uncontested to go off. This isn’t Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas.

Lukka is just a Polymorph, but with upsides befitting a card printed in 2020. Every Lukka deck should be built with some specific high-cost creature it aims to hit off the -2.

While his other abilities are unimpressive, they’re still there. If your opponent kills the targeted creature in response to the -2, you still control a Lukka that will draw more creatures if unopposed. It even has enough loyalty leftover to fire off a -2 again the next turn.

But the real upside of Lukka is right there in the -2 ability. It only scans for something with higher converted mana cost than what you exiled, not any creature the way old Polymorph variants worked. You can build a deck with actual creatures, that plays a normal game, but happens to have Lukka and two copies of a giant monster to threaten a combo. All you need is for your curve to stop at some number.

False Tempo, here we come.

Choose a Number, Any Number

The choice of giant creature is fairly low-impact on the rest of your deck, so the real decision is the creatures leading up to it. Where should we end our pre-Lukka curve?

I’m pretty sure the answer is less than four. At that much mana, you are already paying for a card that should win the game uncontested. If you resolve a four-drop and then a five-drop planeswalker without a removal spell hitting you, are you that much less likely to win than if you controlled a Titanoth Rex?

On the other side, the answer just can’t be one. Your goal is to build a reasonable Magic deck that happens to get Lukka and a monster to flip for free. I can’t imagine doing that with all one-drops in a way where Lukka as some mass pump effect isn’t equally lethal.

That leaves two or three as the stopping point. But you aren’t legally required to only play cards that cost that much. You just need enough two-drops or three-drops to reliably draw one and cast it when you land Lukka. The follow-up question: how many of that top spot do you actually need?

Looking back at old Rise of the Eldrazi era lists, most have seven or eight ways to produce a creature, but that is with Preordain, Ponder, and other great cantrips we just don’t have today. I would guess ten curve-toppers is a solid minimum. That’s about at the peak number of two-drops I’m interested in playing, but it’s certainly manageable.

That Would Be…Cheating

There’s another way to produce a slightly higher-cost body to Lukka out for a monster. And honestly, it’s probably obligated the way everything else looks.

Choose a companion.

Three of the companions are eliminated just by including Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast in your deck.

Another two are eliminated by baseline practical concerns. You can’t build an all-planeswalkers Lukka deck, and only playing one Lukka seems stupid.

Keruga, the Macrosage seems almost counterproductive to Lukka. You want to be fast, efficient, but with a powerful end-game. Not just all whammies.

Yorion, Sky Nomad and Obosh, the Preypiercer seem reasonable to try, but they aren’t quite optimal. You ideally want to cast Lukka on time and then immediately make your giant thing. You don’t want to cast another five-drop before or after as your setup. Obosh is especially impacted, since why do you need another game-ending five-drop if you always start the game with one? That issue is especially a problem in Pioneer, where most of the Gruul shells looking for a finisher would rather be Obosh decks.

Yorion is a bit more interesting since it lets you rarely draw your big whammy, but it also means you don’t draw your Lukka nearly as much. Kinda weird to construct your whole deck around a card, yet make yourself less likely to find it.

That leaves Kaheera, the Orphanguard and Zirda, the Dawnwaker as the reasonable options. Expect a lot of my lists to play one of these cards.

The Cherry On Top

I’ve spend a lot of time talking about Eldrazi, but we don’t quite have those in Standard. What is even worth finding with Lukka’s -2?

Ideally, you are playing a big hit that is fine when drawn, but none of the six-drops seem super-exciting in Standard. I would just cast them from my hand in a deck that maximizes them if I wanted to play them, not jump through hoops.

If you really devote yourself to mana creatures, you can declare seven- and eight-drops castable. There are certainly good options, with Agent of Treachery and End-Razer Forerunners both having seen normal play before. Sadly neither of these allows you to play either of the good companions for the rest of the archetype.

Cycling is a real out to drawing your bad card, and both of these cycling Dinosaurs are companion-friendly. I’m partial to Yidaro, Wandering Monster over Titanoth Rex because I think haste is a real upside and the reshuffle ensures the nightmare “draw all the Lukka hits” scenario is nonexistent.

I love coding and bugs 😀

FINAL ANSWER (I hope)

number of turns: 28.5495
number of cards: 37.5495

Code moved to following folder and updated:https://t.co/D55iMyu8Wp

— Ryan Saxe (@rcsaxe) April 7, 2020

I’m not interested in Yidaro for the rest of that long text box, though. The math on how long it takes to get the fourth cycle just doesn’t add up. I don’t plan on seeing half my deck most games, or even playing four Yidaro.

Beanstalk Giant was a card I thought about briefly, but it just doesn’t fit. It’s not normally that big an upgrade to a resolved Bonecrusher Giant, but it’s really not an upgrade when you might have four or five lands on the battlefield and are cheating it out early.

Or you can just throw all caution out the window.

If we step up to Pioneer, there are some more exciting options.

You can find some expensive combo piece, though having to sacrifice your Zirda, the Dawnwaker to find the Drowner of Hope for your Eldrazi Displacer combo is a little dicey.

There are some really good combo or control breakers that are all reasonable to cast on their own.

You can sweep aggro opponents.

There’s the Dinosaur fun time package.

Or just back to the classics.

I don’t quite think Lukka is cut out for Modern, however. I may be proven wrong with some weird “hatebears with a combo kill” strategy, but most of what he does could already be accomplished with Nahiri, the Harbinger or is outclassed by the spell-based ways to generate a Griselbrand.

The one option that interested me but I couldn’t find a good way to accomplish was some weird Lukka chain. If you copy or Flicker Lukka, it comes right back ready to reactivate. But what does that next activation even do? Why go through a Spark Double if it means you need a second creature? Even if you could play Felidar Guardian, flickering and reactivating Lukka would be the same as if you skipped the Guardian in the first place.

Maybe there’s something narrow hidden somewhere, but I’m really dubious.

Put It All Together

With all the steps laid out, let’s finally get to some lists.

Once you go down the Zirda road, there aren’t a ton of exciting three-drops to include in your deck. That plants your curve’s top at two, with adapt being the way to exploit Zirda, the Dawnwaker’s ability.

Of course, you are kinda obligated to play Fiend Artisan. In terms of backup plans, yet another single-card route to victory is very welcome.

I’m unsure which of the Simic cards is the more exciting payoff. Both are a bit situational based on you already setting up, but push in different directions. Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy fires off if you just have mana without a threat, while Biomancer’s Familiar lets your Growth-Chamber Guardian draws pop off.

The classic Granted plus Vivien, Arkbow Ranger sideboard, plus a companion, but also with a real sideboard in there too? Since I’m only planning to find Fae of Wishes with Fiend Artisan and since Vivien’s ultimate is a narrow situation, I’ve kept those targets to a bare minimum. They are all things I could see sideboarding in, and all things that don’t conflict with Zirda.

I did consider Brawl deck spectacular Steelbane Hydra since Thrashing Brontodon messes with your Lukka costs, but it seemed a bit too inefficient.

Yup, seen this one a few times before. Priest of Forgotten Gods lets you jump a bit towards Lukka, but sadly there’s no way to get the second creature to sacrifice by Turn 3 for a really fast combo.

I really like how Zirda, the Dawnwaker plays with this deck’s one-drops. One mana to chain off your Whisper Squad is really efficient, and Knight of the Ebon Legion is just going to one-shot them when you pay one mana for three power of pump.

Lurrus, Ikoria's Oko

Rank 1 Baby!

List: https://t.co/NF1O6PaM3z pic.twitter.com/JNq8CRDqHK

— Stephen Croke (@crokeyz) April 18, 2020

There is a Lurrus Rakdos Sacrifice deck already floating around, and this is competing in the same space, but it’s mostly just wild how well one of the best decks in Theros Beyond Death Standard can adapt to the best new things from Ikoria.

A quick listing of the best Zirda-Lukka overlaps I found in the format that didn’t quite fit a deck:

There’s some overlap between the Humans and Heliod, Sun-Crowned incentives with Drannith Healer, but then you are opening an entire cycling can of worms where the individual cards aren’t that good.

On to Kaheera, the Orphanguard!

How To Build Around Kaheera, Lord Of The Misfit Creature Type

You may recognize this from last week. It’s exactly the Kaheera Elementals list I suggested, but with a Lukka package and no three-drops. Just upgrading any of your two-drops into a potential Omnath, Locus of the Roil is insane, and upgrading a Scampering Scorcher to a Yidaro is game over. Some how the precise Polymorph plan just isn’t a priority, you just get enough value off the obvious upgrades that you are fine with a less linear Lukka.

Looking at the non-Elemental types, there just isn’t enough power in the two-drops to carry a super-low-curve Lukka deck. Once you step to the three-drops, you end up in a weird spot where all the Kaheera-typed creatures are too good to want to trade in. Even if you have cards to cast a five-drop after casting Rotting Regisaur, you have a 7/6. Who cares?

The closest I found was some go-wide strategy involving Regal Leosaur mutate, but the cards just aren’t quite there.

Finally, some normal Human things without companions.

Both Winota and Lukka point towards Agent of Treachery. Similarly to Omnath, Locus of the Roil, flipping a lower-cost creature into a Winota is all you want. Kenrith, the Returned King ain’t shabby either.

Have you seen what’s going on out there in every non-Pauper format?

This is a really rough cut, and I’ll let Emma Handy dive into more refined Winota, Joiner of Forces decks later, but my main concern here is being a bit light on Humans. I might have the curve a little flipped based on the exciting potential of Legion Warboss with Winota, and you might want your three-drop to be a harder-hitting Human while your low-drops fill out the non-Human half of the deck.

Despite seeming to have a really tight restriction, Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast has a large number of routes to build unique aggro-Polymorph decks. And that’s just Standard right now, after mere days of looking at the cards and figuring things out.

Lukka has much more room to grow into a format-defining combo-aggro threat.