Sometimes, when building a deck early in a format, you stumble upon an interaction between two cards that just feels awesome. You try to find ways to stuff the combo into as many decks as you can think of to see if it's as powerful as you first imagined. You start to look at other ways to set up the interaction and, like a spark in tinder, try to let it flourish into a full deck.

For me, that early-season interaction was Icetill Explorer and Earthbender Ascension. When you combine the ability to play multiple lands a turn with the Earthbender Ascension triggers, you can build a huge, trampling creature to end the game in a hurry. Especially if you get a Fabled Passage online, setting up four triggers a turn.

Golgari Strikes Back | TLA Standard | Travis Hall

• Creatures (15)
• 2 Morlun, Devourer of Spiders
• 2 Mosswood Dreadknight
• 3 Cecil, Dark Knight // Cecil, Redeemed Paladin
• 4 Badgermole Cub
• 4 Icetill Explorer

• Instants (4)
• 1 Heartless Act
• 3 Shoot the Sheriff

• Sorceries (10)
• 1 Maelstrom Pulse
• 2 Strategic Betrayal
• 3 Deadly Cover-Up
• 4 Esper Origins

• Enchantments (7)
• 3 Obsessive Pursuit
• 4 Earthbender Ascension

• Lands (24)
• 5 Forest
• 5 Swamp
• 1 Demolition Field
• 2 Ba Sing Se
• 3 Restless Cottage
• 4 Fabled Passage
• 4 Wastewood Verge

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Card Choices

Badgermole Cub

While I am primarily writing this article about Earthbender Ascension, this is the best Green card in Avatar: the Last Airbender. It's honestly so good that it's kind of boring. You're building a Green deck? You have to look for a reason NOT to include the Cub going forward. The mana value this can add here is a little bonkers.

Earthbender Ascension

The card that inspired this deck. I played with this and Badgermole Cub targeting a Fabled Passage once and realized that there was some ridiculous power in this card. It's like a Bristly Bill, Spine Sower that fixes your mana, accelerates, and plays exceptionally well with the aforementioned Cub. It may not have Bill's doubling effect, but do not overlook the fact that this grants trample the turn you target a creature with a +1/+1 counter. This breaks stalemates.

Ba Sing Se

This serves as a back-up "Icetill Explorer" as you can use it with Fabled Passage to create multiple triggers for Earthbender Ascension. It also serves as an excellent late game threat against the control decks.

Morlun, Devourer of Spiders

This deck can make a ton of mana fast, so we sometimes want a payoff where we can dump all that mana. Enter Morlun, who scales well and can double as a fireball if your Badgermole Cub goes off. I think we're still just learning how good this card can be in the format.

Esper Origins

Until Badgermole Cub was printed, I felt like you could make an argument for this being the bet Green card in Standard. It buffers your life total, it provides Green a critical piece of deck manipulation, and comes down later as a 4/4 that draws a card and ramps you for a turn. This deck uses all the parts of the buffalo here, as I've used each effect on this card at some point or other. The life gain is an especially good buffer against the life lost due to the next card...

Obsessive Pursuit

This is my, "let's take a flyer on this card since it was nuts in draft" inclusion from the set at first. But, the more I play with this, the more I think it could be busted, and deserving of it's own deck (and article). Creating a clue every turn is a great way to grind out wins, sure. But the counters are so easy to trigger, and if you get the Fabled Passage + Icetill Explorer combo going (since Obsessive Pursuit triggers off any sacrifice, not just the clues) you can end the game out of nowhere.

Deadly Cover-Up

I normally hate including mass removal spells in creature heavy decks, but it feels like this metagame really needs a mass removal spell if you can afford to run one. Decks like Simic Ouroboroid can go wither tall or wide, and this is one of the few ways to answer them from any angle. The downside to running this is that you probably have to cut out Llanowar Elves, as I have done here. You can also use the Collect Evidence ability to nail an Earthbending deck's mana sources if they're not careful.

As much as I love this deck, the interaction between Icetill Explorer and Earthbender Ascension, and I've had fun winning with it, I feel like we're only scratching the surface of how powerful it could be. I haven't had much time to test this, but maybe we should be looking at Gruul instead of Golgari? And lean harder into Earthbending? Let me leave you with this idea:

Gruul Earthbending | TLA Standard | Travis Hall

Gruul Earthbending | Standard | Travis Hall

• Creatures (20)
• 1 Hugs, Grisly Guardian
• 2 Bumi, Unleashed
• 3 Icetill Explorer
• 3 Tannuk, Memorial Ensign
• 3 Toph, Hardheaded Teacher
• 4 Badgermole Cub
• 4 Llanowar Elves

• Instants (8)
• 4 Combustion Technique
• 4 Firebending Lesson

• Sorceries (4)
• 4 Esper Origins

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Earthbender Ascension

• Lands (24)
• 6 Forest
• 4 Mountain
• 2 Ba Sing Se
• 4 Fabled Passage
• 4 Stomping Ground
• 4 Thornspire Verge

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You can find more of my Magic musings on Twitter/X @travishall456 and on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/anakinsdad.bsky.social