So I have spent a lot of time trumpeting the Baloth Woodcrasher in the face of overwhelming support for the Rampaging Baloth as the six-mana landfall creature of choice.  I still feel that in a straightforward landfall deck I would prefer the Woodcrasher to the Rampaging Baloth but there is another card that I think is waaaay more exciting than either of those two options. Last night, while podcasting with Mike about the spoiled Zendikar cards, I laid eyes on Ob Nixilis, the Fallen for the first time. I guess I was not paying attention earlier in the week or forgot to check someone’s column but I flat out missed this badass when talking about the various landfall creatures.

The demon pretty much kicks both of these cards in their rather  prodigious “toughnesses” with one of the best landfall abilities to date — killing your opponent. One fetch land may cost you one life but with Ob Nixilis on the board it will take your opponent from 20 to 14 and they will be staring down a 9/9 demon that cannot die to Terror-style removal (take that, Doom Blade guy!)

The landfall life loss from Ob Nixilis adds up very quickly and I started looking for ways to abuse it. Obviously Oracle of Mul Daya is going to let you create some pretty sick turns and Khalni Heart Expedition seems pretty saucy as well. What I like about the Expedition is that you can use the first one to fix/ramp out your Ob Nixilis and subsequent ones to abuse the landfall and maximize lifeloss.

I also started looking for other ways to spit out multiple lands. I was joking about phasing all my lands in and out with Taniwa when suddenly it occurred to me…Warp World. You could play the deck much like recent versions but you don’t need such a critical mass of permanents in order to hit four Bogarden Hellkites. Instead you need to Warp up one — maybe two — demon and then abuse all the lands you hit in the process. One Ob Nixilis and seven lands is game over as is two Ob Nixilis and four lands. Read the rest of this entry »