When a new set drops, I love building decks around the new commanders we've just had added to our format. Avatar: The Last Airbender was a treasure trove of new and interesting cards to build around but today I'm not building around a legendary creature from that set. I'm going to build around a mechanic from that set.

Earthbending is the kind of mechanic that opens up all kinds of interesting possibilities. When you earthbend you put +1/+1 counter on a land, the land turns into a 0/0 creature, and if it were to die or get exiled the land gets returned to the battlefield tapped.

There are lots of creatures and spells in Avatar that earthbend, but instead of using a commander that has earthbending, I decided it would be fun to see if I could "break" this mechanic by making my lands enter untapped.

Archelos Earthbending

Archelos, Lagoon Mystic is a four-mana Sultai Turtle Shaman with a neat party trick. As long as Archelos is tapped, other permanents enter the battlefield tapped. As long as Archelos is untapped, other permanents enter the battlefield untapped. That's it. This is Amulet of Vigor in a turtle shell, and while I've built and played Archelos in the past, I've never really fallen in love with an Archelos deck.

I think my problem was that the sensible way to build Archelos is as a way to slow down your opponents. If everything they play enters tapped - even their lands - I'll always be one turn ahead of them. The problem with that is you'll soon find your commander removed and then countered because nobody wants to play against that kind of headache. It's just not a lot of fun. Even if Archelos is pretty tame when compared to many stax pieces, I don't want the table intent on removing my commander, and I don't love playing cards that keep my tablemates from having fun.

Today's deck is not about stopping anyone from having fun. It's about ramping in new and unexpected ways.

Myriad Landscape

If I told you this deck's best games might be on the back of a card like Myriad Landscape, you might think I'm crazy. Before you write me off, let's take a look at this uncommon land.

It enters tapped, taps to generate a colorless mana, and for two mana you can sacrifice it, tutor up two basic lands that share a land type, and put them into play tapped. Most of you are probably familiar with this card, as it's a passable way to ramp in lower-powered EDH.

It's not amazing, it's not flashy, but what if it was?

What if Myriad Landscape read like this:

"This land enters untapped. Tap: Add 1 colorless mana. 2, Tap, Sacrifice this land: Search your library for up to two basic land cards that share a land type, put them onto the battlefield untapped, return Myriad Landscape to the battlefield untapped, then shuffle."

What a difference that would make! A real Magic card wouldn't bother to say that things enter untapped, but my point is that this OK land is suddenly amazing.

The key that makes this all possible is earthbending and an Amulet of Vigor effect. Archelos provides the latter, though I've got Amulet in the list as backup in case he gets removed. All I need to do is use earthbending on Myriad Landscape to turn it into a creature. When I sacrifice it to fetch up my 2 matching lands, it comes back into play. It won't return to play as a creature so if I want to do it again, I'll need to earthbend it again.

This neat trick works beautifully with Myriad Landscape, but it also works with some more modest lands that can fetch up a basic and put it into play tapped.

Even just playing an Evolving Wilds, fetching up a land, and being able to do it again and have both of those lands enter untapped, is pretty darn good. It's not earthbended Myriad Landscape levels of awesomeness, but still good.

In order to make my Myriad Landscape dreams come true, I'm running one game changer - Crop Rotation. I'm also running Ulvenwald Hydra, Tempt With Discovery, and Expedition Map. I'm running ten cards that can earthbend so there's a decent chance I'll hit both a land that can sacrifice to fetch up one or more basic lands or a tutor to get one of those lands, and at least one way to earthbend.

Landfall Shenanigans

Crazy amounts of land drops lead this deck in some fairly predictable directions. I'm going to be trying to abuse lands that have been turned into creatures with earthbending. If that goes as planned, I should be seeing lots of extra landfall triggers.

Card draw is so important that I almost decided to run Seer's Sundial, a four-mana artifact that lets you pay 2 mana when you have a land enter play in order to draw a card. I don't love having to keep paying mana like that, so while that artifact didn't make the cut, I did find room to include Tatyova, Benthic Druid and Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait. The former will have me draw a card and gain a life when I have a land enter play. The latter will give me an extra land drop and will let me draw a card when one of my lands enters the battlefield.

My dream scenario of having an extra five land drops in a turn plays really well with creatures like Rampaging Baloths and Scute Swarm. The former will give me a 4/4 green Beast token for each landfall trigger. The latter is simply a menace that will spiral out of control very quickly. If I've got one Scute Swarm and I control six or more lands, those five landfall triggers will grow my swarm all the way from 1 to 32 Scute Swarms, and if I manage to start my big turn with more than one, I might be looking at an insect army in the hundreds, or even in the thousands.

Avenger of Zendikar is a classic staple in green decks for a reason. When it enters play, I'll make a 0/1 green Plant token for each land I control. Whenever a land I control enters play, I can put a +1/+1 counter on each Plant creature I control. If I earthbend Myriad Landscape before combat, I can attack with a bunch of 0/1 plant tokens and have them hit with five +1/+1 counters on each one if I do my double Myriad Landscape activation before damage.

It's worth noting that if I decide to do a double activation of Myriad Landscape in combat, it's highly unlikely I'll be able to bring Myriad Landscape back that second time. My land only comes back if it's been hit with an earthbending trigger, and it's not easy to do that at instant speed. It's also worth mentioning that I'm not running off-color fetches, but that's something you could do if you really wanted to lean into this as a strategy. I'm not against the concept of off-color fetches, but it's also something I really don't do very often

About That Earthbending...

While you're probably familiar with the lands and the landfall cards I mentioned above, you might be less familiar with earthbending. It might be weaker than airbending, waterbending, and firebending, and it puts your lands at risk in ways that many players try to avoid. If nothing else, tapping a land to send it into combat usually means one less land you have available to tap for mana.

I'm running a few creatures that earthbend when they enter play. Earthbending Student is a three-mana Green Human Warrior Ally with earthbending 2, with the added ability to let my land creatures have vigilance. The aptly named Badgermole is in the list as a five-mana Badger Mole with earthbend 2, with the added ability to let creatures I control with +1/+1 counters on them have trample. Beifong's Bounty Hunters is also in the list as a creature with an earthbending death trigger. Whenever a nonland creature I control dies, I'll earthbend X, where X is its power.

I've got a few spells with earthbending tacked onto them. Bumi's Feast Lecture is a 2 mana Sorcery Lesson that will make a Food Token and then earthbend X where X is twice the number of Foods I control. I'm also running Cracked Earth Technique, Dai Li Indoctrination, and Earth Rumble, all of which can earthbend a land at sorcery speed.

Repeatable, reliable earthbending triggers are what I want more than anything, so I'm hoping Avatar Kyoshi, Earthbender is worth his eight mana casting cost. During my turn he'll have hexproof, and at the beginning of combat on my turn I'll earthbend 8 and then untap the land that I just turned into a creature.

Earthbending 8 will make a land into a decent-sized creature, so it makes sense to run a few lands that can turn all of these triggers into a threat. Secret Tunnel can do that for me pretty nicely. It's a Cave type Land that can't be blocked. That's a weird thing to see on a land, but makes it an ideal target to turn into a creature.

Lair of the Hydra is a little less subtle. It's a land that can be turned into an X/X green Hydra for the cost of X and a green mana. X can't be zero, but if I've used earthbending to put 8 +1/+1 counters on Lair of the Hydra and turn it into a creature, that activation will turn it into a creature with a power and toughness of X + 8 (from those +1/+1 counters). I can do that at instant speed, so it could even be an effective combat trick.

My paper list for this deck is running a pair of the Restless lands in Restless Cottage and Restless Vinestalk, but I decided to swap a creature out and add in Restless Reef in the list I'd share with you today. These lands have activated abilities to turn them into creatures. Cottage becomes a 4/4 black and green Horror, Vinestalk turns into a 5/5 green and blue Plant creature with trample, and Reef becomes a 4/4 blue and black Shark with deathtouch. When Cottage attacks I'll create a Food token and exile up to one target card from a graveyard.

A Lethal Landscape

When building a deck around turning lands into creatures, and then going the extra step of adding "man-lands", it should come as no surprise that I ended up deciding to lean into that theme for another possible wincon. If the deck plays out the way I hope it will, I'll end up with an awful lot of lands on the battlefield.

Rude Awakening is a modal sorcery spell with entwine. For five mana in Green I can either untap all lands I control, or until end of turn lands I control can become 2/2 creatures that are still lands. If I entwine it for an additional three mana, I can do both. I'm also running the sorcery Sylvan Awakening, which can turn my lands into 2/2 Elemental creatures with reach, Indestructible, and haste.

I've even got an option to do this at instant speed in Kamahl's Will. For four mana it can do one of two things. The first mode will untap any number of target lands I control and they become 1/1 Elemental creatures with vigilance, indestructible, and haste. The second mode will have each creature I control deal damage equal to its power to target creature I don't control. If I control my commander when I cast this spell, I can choose both modes.

The dream of actually killing a table or even a player or two with my lands isn't very realistic. Players start at 40 life, and I'll be lucky to have a dozen lands in play when I cast one of these spells. For that reason I'm playing a few ways to push up that damage output. Beastmaster Ascension will get a quest counter whenever a creature I control attacks, and as long as it has seven or more quest counters, my creatures will get +5/+5. I'm also running Triumph of the Hordes, which will give my creatures +1/+1 and infect. Swinging my lands at an opponent isn't likely to do much, but the plan is to use these after a boardwipe when nobody has much in the way of blockers.

Myriad Mystic

When the big thing your deck is trying to do is simply going to give you a few extra land drops, it's not a big surprise that the deck isn't exactly a powerhouse. That doesn't mean it isn't fun, or isn't going to be worth playing. I've built plenty of decks that had an incredibly powerful and largely unrealistic game plan, and those decks always had a problem actually achieving their goals. When your "cute trick" will kill the table, you can't really blame your tablemates for stopping it.

This deck's cute trick enables some fun landfall value and can be turned into a win in a variety of ways. None of them are fast or particularly efficient. Since my plan is to use earthbending to squeeze extra value out of lands like Myriad Landscape, I didn't build around ways to add more +1/+1 counters, but I could see a deck built around earthbending and cards like Hardened Scales and Kami of Whispered Hopes. I did include Simic Ascendancy, but it wasn't meant as a main wincon that the deck would be centered around.

Archelos Earthbending | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Archelos, Lagoon Mystic

• Creatures (23)
• 1 Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait
• 1 Avatar Kyoshi, Earthbender
• 1 Avenger of Zendikar
• 1 Badgermole
• 1 Beast Whisperer
• 1 Beifong's Bounty Hunters
• 1 Caustic Caterpillar
• 1 Dawntreader Elk
• 1 Earthbending Student
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Mossborn Hydra
• 1 Neverwinter Dryad
• 1 Rampaging Baloths
• 1 Rebellious Captives
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Scute Swarm
• 1 Springbloom Druid
• 1 Tatyova, Benthic Druid
• 1 Timeless Witness
• 1 Tireless Provisioner
• 1 Ulvenwald Hydra
• 1 Voracious Varmint

• Spells (26)
• 1 Aetherize
• 1 Aetherspouts
• 1 Arcane Denial
• 1 Assassin's Trophy
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Crop Rotation
• 1 Deadly Rollick
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Kamahl's Will
• 1 Pongify
• 1 Rapid Hybridization
• 1 Swan Song
• 1 Bumi's Feast Lecture
• 1 Cracked Earth Technique
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Dai Li Indoctrination
• 1 Earth Rumble
• 1 Farseek
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Rockalanche
• 1 Rude Awakening
• 1 Sylvan Awakening
• 1 Tempt with Discovery
• 1 Triumph of the Hordes

• Enchantments (5)
• 1 Beastmaster Ascension
• 1 Black Market Connections
• 1 Guardian Project
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 Simic Ascendancy

• Artifacts (3)
• 1 Amulet of Vigor
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Skullclamp

• Lands (42)
• 7 Forest
• 7 Island
• 7 Swamp
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Dimir Aqueduct
• 1 Drowned Catacomb
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Foreboding Landscape
• 1 Golgari Rot Farm
• 1 Hinterland Harbor
• 1 Lair of the Hydra
• 1 Lumbering Falls
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Opulent Palace
• 1 Restless Cottage
• 1 Restless Reef
• 1 Restless Vinestalk
• 1 Secret Tunnel
• 1 Simic Growth Chamber
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Woodland Cemetery
• 1 Zagoth Triome

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If you wanted to tune this list down, you might drop out some of the saltier cards like Triumph, or even Scute Swarm. I would probably lean into a deck built around man-lands (lands that can be turned into creatures) for a lower powered build, and I'd run some indestructible lands, as you can send those into battle without a lot of concern for them getting killed by blockers. Earthbending an indestructible land like Darksteel Citadel will give you an amazing blocker, even if it's just a 2/2 creature.

To tune this list up, you'd probably lean into the stax plan. I don't love playing decks that my tablemates aren't going to enjoy, but that's a personal choice. You would probably want to run ways to tap Archelos at instant speed. It makes a ton of sense to have your commander able to stop aggro combo decks in their tracks by forcing their creatures to enter play tapped. Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker isn't quite as deadly if copies of Zealous Conscripts or Combat Celebrant can't enter and attack.

Early Results

I was able to get this deck into a game at the LGS I play at on Tuesday nights and the results surprised me. I may have just gotten lucky, but I'm already looking forward to its next game.

I managed to start with a few lands, Amulet of Vigor, Tatyova, and Simic Ascendancy in my opening hand. I played out Amulet of Vigor on turn one and Simic Ascendancy on turn two and they both stuck around the whole game. Tatyova ended up drawing me a ton of cards, and was probably the biggest reason things went so well.

I played a basic land on turn one and a bounce land on turn two, which untapped thanks to Amulet of Vigor, so I already felt like things were going according to plan. I played Archelos on turn four and assured my buddies that I had no intention of using it to force their stuff to enter tapped. I never did tap or attack with Archelos, so my promises were genuine. When I played out Simic Ascendancy I assured them that it would get growth counters if I actually did any earthbending, but I had not built the deck around it as a wincon.

I ended up using Crop Rotation to get Myriad Landscape, and while that game changer raised a few eyebrows, nobody seemed at all concerned about the land I chose to tutor for. I ended up using earthbending triggers on Myriad Landscape at least twice, and getting pretty far ahead of my tablemates as a result. The deck was doing what it was supposed to do, and it felt good.

I never saw any of my more serious landfall threats, but my earthbending triggers had been adding up and when I drew into Avatar Kyoshi, Earthbender, I had a feeling I was going to be able to threaten a Simic Ascendancy win. I had Simic Ascendancy at 11 growth counters and Avatar Kyoshi would singlehandedly put it all the way up to 19 by giving me an earthbend 8 trigger when I went to combat.

I try to be judicious about using interaction and removal, even in lower powered games, and as a result a decent portion of my wins are because I had the right card at the right time late in the game. In this case I was able to use a counterspell and a Heroic Intervention in the run-up to my game-winning upkeep to protect Simic Ascendancy and secure the victory.

I felt a little bad that I had assured my tablemates that Simic Ascendancy wasn't the main thrust of the deck, but they also understood it could actually win me the game. I had two ways to turn my lands into creatures and had expected the game would go in that direction, so I was as surprised as anyone when I found myself able to get that 20th growth counter to win on my upkeep.

I got the deck into a second game the following Saturday with a different playgroup. I didn't win, but I was able to swing out with all of my lands with an Ascension in play to knock out two opponents. The last remaining tablemate had too many blockers and I wasn't able to seal the deal, but it was great to be able to see the deck live that particular dream (killing players with animated lands), even in defeat.

Final Thoughts

This ended up being a really fun build and a fun deck to play. With Lorwyn Eclipsed on the way, I'll be writing up a few more Avatar decks and a year end column of some sort before pivoting to the new set. Next week's column looks to be a fun low-powered red deck built around a commander with a very silly name. I'll do my best to keep from also building a very silly theme, though I'll admit that I am tempted. You'll see what I mean in a week's time.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!