As I skimmed through Final Fantasy spoilers looking for a card to write about this week, it didn't take long for me to fall in love with a mono-Green Human Monk with a landfall trigger worth getting excited about. I don't think I ever played Final Fantasy VII, but if I'm lucky enough to open Tifa in a booster pack, I'll be hard pressed not to build a deck around her.

Tifa has 1 power, 2 toughness, and trample. That might seem odd at first glance, but whenever a land I control enters play, I'll double her power until end of turn. I know how to build around landfall and I know plenty of ways to take advantage of having a huge commander.

The Obvious Choice

It might seem like it should go without saying, but when you have a huge commander with trample, the obvious thing to do with it is start murdering people. Going directly to combat might seem like a simple choice, and it is... unless I'm at a table where folks are playing lower powered decks and I want to put the kid gloves on and play nice. Sometimes it's appropriate to do that, but maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

I keep talking about Tifa Lockhart being huge, but she's only a 1-power Human Monk. Even if I'm able to get a three landfall triggers on a single turn, that would make her an 8/8. That's good, but it's far from a one-shot kill. I'll usually be getting just one or two landfall triggers unless things go really well.

My first step is to make Tifa a bit bigger before I start getting landfall triggers. I've got Sword of the Animist, Sword of Hearth and Home, and Sword of Feast and Famine in the list. Those all give a little pump, and Sword of the Animist will even give me a pre-damage landfall trigger, but I've got bigger things in mind.

A deck built around putting out as many lands as possible will do well to play equipment that boosts the equipped creature based upon the number of lands I control. In a mono-Green deck, there are lots of options for that. Blackblade Reforged will give +X/+X where X is the number of lands I control. Strata Scythe will let me exile a Forest from my library and the equipped creature will get +1/+1 for each Forest in play - including any Forests played by my tablemates!

Staff of Titania might be better than both of those, giving +X/+X where X is the number of Forests I control. It's perfect for Tifa because it also gives an attack trigger that lets me create a 1/1 Green Forest Dryad. That Dryad will give me another landfall trigger before blockers are declared.

Three landfall triggers will take a 1 power Tifa and turn her into an 8 power Tifa. If I'm able to get Tifa up to six power before I even start playing lands, those same three landfall triggers will make Tifa a 48/48... with trample!

I'm also running other ways to make my creatures bigger. Three will be times where an extra doubling of my commander's power will make a huge difference.

Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus is a 4/6 Phyrexian Horror with Reach that will have me double the power and toughness of each creature I control until end of turn. Unnatural Growth is five mana Enchantment that will do much the same thing. Both of those are good, but being able to get another doubling of my commander's power at instant speed is really strong.

Berserk is a 1-mana instant that will give target creature +X/+0 until end of turn where X is its power. At the beginning of the next end step, that creature will be destroyed if it attacked that turn. This lets me set up an opponent to think they have a block that will keep them alive, only to surprise them with an extra doubling of her power. I can also do this with Harrow, which is an instant speed ramp spell, and both Dawntreader Elk and Neverwinter Dryad, which have activated abilities that let me tutor up a land.

I started this section by saying that it felt a bit obvious to just plan to go to combat, but maybe the idea of using all of these landfall combat tricks isn't so obvious.

Odds and Ends

It should go without saying that this deck has a lot of land ramp, but it's not enough to always just go to combat with my commander to win games. If nothing else, that's boring. I think it will be effective, but I like my decks to be able to do different things. To that end, I've tossed in a few fun spells that take advantage of having a big creature.

Fungal Sprouting will put X Green Saproling creature tokens into play under my control where X is the greatest power among creatures I control. If I've been ramping a lot, there's a good chance I'll have the mana to be able to do this in my second main phase after going to combat.

If I play Traverse the Outlands after going to combat, I should have my head examined. This five-mana sorcery will let me tutor up X basic lands where X is the greatest power among creatures I control. If I'm able to do this after a couple of landfall triggers, putting Tifa Lockhart at 4 power, I'll get four lands and she'll go all the way up to 64 power by getting doubled four more times. If she's got some equipment on her before she starts doubling her power, things could get really crazy. I'm also running Genesis Wave, which could net me a decent number of landfall triggers if I'm able to pay enough into the X for that spell.

Removal is important in any deck and a second main phase Monstrous Onslaught could go a long way towards clearing the board if Tifa is big enough. It'll let me deal X damage divided as I choose among any number of target creatures where X is the greatest power among creatures I control as I cast it.

Any time I'm building around a commander that can get huge I like to throw in cards that take advantage of having a big creature. Overwhelming Stampede is the OG pump spell in this class, giving my creatures +X/+X where X is the greatest power among creatures I control. Pathbreaker Ibex is an Overwhelming Stampede stamped onto a Goat's attack trigger.

Finale of Devastation is my only tutor, but if I'm able to make enough mana it might be enough to kill the table. This X spell will let me search my library and/or graveyard for a creature with mana value X or less and put it into play. If X is 10 or more, my creatures will get +X/+X and haste until end of turn. If I can cast Finale for 10 followed by a landfall trigger or two, someone is going to be in a world of hurt if they can't fog or bounce my attackers.

I've got a few extra ways to go wide in Avenger of Zendikar and Curious Herd, but this deck's main plan is to attack with Tira. I should have enough backup options to have a shot if she gets Imprisoned in the Moon or turned into an Elk, but the deck's game plan centers around her.

Landfall Tifa

This brew gave me a nice excuse to play some fun cards that I simply enjoy a lot in EDH. I'm running four Fog effects in Spore Frog, Moment's Peace, Constant Mists and Obscuring Haze. It's a lot of fun to fog an alpha strike and kill someone on the crackback after they over-committed to what they thought was a game ending attack. Sometimes you can even get an opponent to leave you alone for a turn by promising their attackers won't do any damage if any of them go at you.

My card draw in this list is largely centered around the size of my largest creature, though I'm running a few Green staples that draw me cards when I cast creature spells. I don't think this deck will struggle with card draw, but you could always throw in cards like Greater Good and Momentous Fall if you're willing to lose a big creature to refill your hand.

Tifa Lockhart EDH | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Tifa Lockhart

• Creatures (24)
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 1 Ashaya, Soul of the Wild
• 1 Avenger of Zendikar
• 1 Bane of Progress
• 1 Beast Whisperer
• 1 Caustic Caterpillar
• 1 Craterhoof Behemoth
• 1 Dawntreader Elk
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Neverwinter Dryad
• 1 Pathbreaker Ibex
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Scute Swarm
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Spore Frog
• 1 Terastodon
• 1 Timeless Witness
• 1 Ulvenwald Hydra
• 1 Voracious Varmint
• 1 Whiptongue Hydra
• 1 Wood Elves
• 1 Yedora, Grave Gardener
• 1 Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus

• Instants (10)
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Berserk
• 1 Constant Mists
• 1 Curious Herd
• 1 Harrow
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Moment's Peace
• 1 Obscuring Haze
• 1 Return of the Wildspeaker
• 1 Return to Nature

• Sorceries (14)
• 1 Finale of Devastation
• 1 Fungal Sprouting
• 1 Genesis Wave
• 1 Monstrous Onslaught
• 1 Nature's Lore
• 1 Overwhelming Stampede
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Rishkar's Expertise
• 1 Scapeshift
• 1 Shamanic Revelation
• 1 Skyshroud Claim
• 1 Splendid Reclamation
• 1 Three Visits
• 1 Traverse the Outlands

• Enchantments (2)
• 1 Guardian Project
• 1 Unnatural Growth

• Artifacts (11)
• 1 Blackblade Reforged
• 1 Emerald Medallion
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Staff of Titania
• 1 Strata Scythe
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Sword of Feast and Famine
• 1 Sword of Hearth and Home
• 1 Sword of the Animist
• 1 The Great Henge
• 1 Wayfarer's Bauble

• Planeswalker (1)
• 1 Garruk, Primal Hunter

• Lands (37)
• 26 Forest
• 1 Blighted Woodland
• 1 Bonders' Enclave
• 1 Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Castle Garenbrig
• 1 Fabled Passage
• 1 Mosswort Bridge
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage

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This deck should be able to play in bracket 3 quite comfortably. If you wanted to make it weaker, you could easily drop out some of the more expensive cards and bring down both the budget and the power level a bit. If you wanted to turn the deck into a kindred build, you could build a pretty funky Green Monks deck, as there are about two dozen Green Monks you could run.

If you wanted to push this deck up in power, the first step would be to throw in a few tutors. The deck is already running Avenger of Zendikar and Craterhoof Behemoth, so Tooth and Nail makes a lot of sense. Triumph of the Hordes would fit in well, and might let you get a Tifa infect kill much easier than a commander damage kill. You could throw in the old Cultivator Colossus / Abundance landfall combo but I'd be hesitant to put all my lands into play in one go. That would limit my ability to do much with Tifa in later turns, as her landfall pump is only until end of turn.

Early Results

I was able to get this list into a game on Thursday night and hoo boy, did Tifa perform well!

I'm running so many ways to put lands into play that as soon as I got a Staff of Titania into play, it was going to be trivial to get her up to lethal size. It was a three-player game, so it would be harder for my tablemates to find answers, but find them they did. The game lasted longer than I expected, but the all-star ended up being a tablemate's spell.

I was twice able to present a lethal threat that got answered, but my Tifa got removed by a Blessed Reincarnation and then when that removal spell got cast again with Rebound my Beast Whisperer got hit. I played Beast Whisperer out after combat instead of just setting up Tifa to get bounced again.

Blessed Reincarnation is a three-mana instant that will exile target creature a player controls and they'll reveal cards from the top of their library until a creature is revealed. That creature gets put onto the battlefield. It's like a Blue Chaos Warp, and it pretty much handed me the game.

The first Blessed Reincarnation gave me a Yedora, Grave Gardener, which can in turn give me more landfall triggers. A Sakura-Tribe Elder would end up quadrupling my Tifa rather than just doubling it, as "Steve" would die and come back as a face down Forest. The second Blessed Reincarnation, used on my Beast Whisperer, got me Ashaya, Soul of the Wild, which makes my nontoken creatures into Forests.

Once I got my Swiftfoot Boots out, played Scute Swarm, and got a bunch of copies of it, the writing was on the wall. I was able to hit one player with a lethal Tifa Lockhart and a turn later hit the other with 64 Scute Swarms.

It was nice for the guys to let me trot out a new list that might have been too much for the table. I suspected that could be the case, but you never really know how a deck will perform until you actually shuffle up and play it. We had our fourth player waiting for us, so we got a much longer, and much better game in after that Tifa game and I played a different deck.

After one game I think Tifa is probably a "high 3" in bracket terms. She can kill a player quite early in the game. If you want to play landfall and you're willing to play something of a voltron strategy, she's going to be worth looking at.

Final Thoughts

The biggest thing I may have overlooked in this brew is the fact that landfall only doubles Tifa's power. That probably means I won't bother sending her into combat unless I'm confident she's going to kill someone. Having to re-cast her isn't a big deal, as she's got a low casting cost, but commander tax could slow me down if the game goes long and I run into a lot of removal.

When we played our online game in Tabletop Simulator, my tablemates were all familiar with the character Tifa Lockhart from Final Fantasy VII. They let me know that FFVII was one of the most popular games in that franchise and that Tifa is generally considered one of the most popular characters from Final Fantasy. I suspected that she was popular, as there are two cards for Tifa, and they would only do that for a character that was well liked or central to the Final Fantasy story.

I really enjoyed playing this deck, so there's a decent chance I'll pick up a copy and build it in paper. On the other hand, it might be too much for some of the tables I play at and I don't need another deck I don't end up playing because it's often too powerful. I'm looking at you, Light-Paws....

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